Interview with Wan Lei, CTO of Qubo: Traffic compression of mobile live broadcast platform

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With 9 years of experience in JAVA technology research and development, we independently developed the Jiayuan.com data and billing service platform (with 200 million daily interface visits) which has been running stably to date.

The server-side architecture design and development of Sohu Mobile Application Market Payment Center, Mobile Game Center, and Sohu Cinema Payment Platform has served nearly 50 million users in total.

A foreign live video streaming software called Meerkat has more than 300,000 users in less than a month after it was launched on the AppStore. It went from being unknown to a household name in 30 days. Meerkat's rapid growth has officially opened the era of video social networking.

Penguin Think Tank described Meerkat as "shockingly simple yet successful." Similarly, a domestic software called Qubo has also received angel round financing.

51CTO interviews Wan Lei, CTO of Qubo: How to solve the traffic compression problem of mobile live broadcast platform

Reporter: China's network environment is very complex. How can we ensure smooth user experience? How can we compress 300M of traffic per hour to less than 100M?

Wan Lei: First of all, the bit rate control, the key is the codec. Our algorithm refers to some open source things, but most of them are developed independently by the team. The second is the number of frames transmitted per second. Many live broadcast software are now based on PC, and many things are not applicable to mobile terminals. In actual operation, our current design can better adapt to mobile terminals.

Reporter: Are the video quality and frame rate the same in Wi-Fi and 3G scenarios? How do you detect the user's network status to improve the user experience? How long is the detection cycle?

Wan Lei : It’s different. Our bit rate is adjusted dynamically. When the network is good, the bit rate will amplify the clarity. When the network environment is bad, we will reduce the bit rate to ensure normal use by users.

In terms of network environment monitoring, it is mainly divided into two parts. The first part is to monitor interruptions: whether there is a network interruption during user use. The second part is to monitor the user's network status, which will be reported to the server every 3 to 5 seconds, and the server will make corresponding adjustments based on the reported data.

Reporter: The current universal standard for video encoding is H264. Apple announced support for H265 when iPhone 6 was first released. What plans does QBO have in this regard? What changes will there be in terms of traffic and clarity if H265 is supported?

Wan Lei: We currently mainly support H264. There is a postdoctoral fellow in our team who specializes in H265. He has also accumulated certain experience in this area. We will add H265 as soon as possible.

Reporter: Qubo now has a 24-hour freshness system, and will do full-time preservation according to user needs in the future. How do we store videos?

Wan Lei: Our system supports distributed storage, and the solution is a set of things we wrote ourselves. According to our own situation, we will focus more on horizontal expansion, so that I can find the files I need easily. Although it is easier to use the online solution directly, many difficult problems will be encountered later.

Reporter: What tests did we conduct before the APP was launched?

Wan Lei: We have conducted in-depth cooperation with Testin in terms of functions, compatibility, and some personalized needs. At the beginning, we used a full screen like Meerkat, but after testing, we found that the user experience was not good, so we changed the full screen to a square. In fact, testing is not as simple as testing for bugs after developing a program. Testing can participate in the design of the entire product and even provide feedback on the user experience, just like adding wings to the product's takeoff.

Reporter: How does QuBo adapt its rectangular, square, or full-screen displays to domestic mobile phones of various sizes?

Wan Lei : Square screens are easier to adapt now than full screens before. Especially for Android phones, there are knock-off machines with all kinds of resolutions. When the screen is full screen, we can only use the method of leaving blank space on the top and bottom or on the left and right, and the square can be stretched proportionally.

Reporter: The systems of many domestic mobile phones are deeply customized based on Android, which will cause many compatibility issues. How does Qubo do in this regard?

Wan Lei: In terms of compatibility, the player we use is the one that comes with the system, which has some problems. The players after Meizu 2 will cause some problems because Meizu has made changes to them. We will introduce some third-party players or use H5 to solve this problem later.

summary

Qubo does not set too many rules and regulations for users. Under a simple rule, users create a variety of ways to play. For example, the media use Qubo to broadcast their own interviews, and celebrities complete online AMA activities...

QBO has taken the first step in the domestic live video social platform. They still need more time to explore both technology and products.

The future of social networking is not sharing, but participating in what I am experiencing.

[Editor: chenqingxiang TEL: (010) 68476606]