From Super Resolution to Ultra-Zero Latency Channel Switching: See Highlights of the AllThingsRTC Conference
What a time we had at the AllThingsRTC conference! The Agora team had a fantastic experience hosting this exceptional real-time communications event. We were graced with the presence of hundreds of technology leaders, developers, and partners from leading industries who came together to share their knowledge, make invaluable connections, and inspire one another as pioneering RTC peers.
Agora’s Founder and CEO, Tony Zhao, delivered a resounding welcome keynote that emphasized the convergence of the RTC community and how this is impacting the world and everyday life. The overarching message focused on real-time interactions across many industries – gaming, personalized fitness training, interactive online classroom/training, telehealth, online shopping, social, and much more.
If you missed the event or had to make the hard choice between the different speaker tracks, we’ve got you covered! We’ll be posting the full event recordings in the coming weeks. For now, let’s look at some noteworthy product announcements, demos, and highlights.
One of the top highlights was Agora’s Super Resolution advancement edge devices. This engineering feat leverages the computing power of machine learning and AI algorithms on devices to render more clarity and sharpness on streams. Furthermore, it allows for lower bandwidth allocation on the current stream, thereby delivering a better interactive experience for users in troubled network environments and emerging markets.
Another notable mention was the Agora Fast Channel Switch and Battle Mode demo, which drew laughter from the crowd as the demo crew rocked some sick dance moves. It was a definite crowd-pleaser and impressive as it enables users to experience immediate channel switching and host battling without needing to double the bandwidth.
Continuing the keynote trend, the next generation of Agora’s Software Defined-Real-Time Network™ (SD-RTN™) that can withstand more than 70-80% packet loss with minimal jitter and no visible resolution degradation was featured. It was followed by a benchmark video comparison that demonstrated ultra-low latency against key competitors at up to 60% packet loss.
Other highlights include, tech keynote from Debargha Mukherjee Google’s Principal Software Engineer, on “The Past, Present and Future of AVI (AOMedia Video 1)” as well as a session from Zoe Liu, Co-founder and President of Visionular, on “Machine Learning for AOM/AVI (Alliance for Open Media) and its Application in RTC.” These presentations broached awareness of AVI, an emerging open-source, royalty-free video coding format that is jointly developed by AOMedia and incorporates a sizeable consortium of leading technology companies.
The event also featured a wide range of stimulating tech presentations, including talks from Shawn Zhong from Agora, Bernard Aboba from Microsoft, and a suite of other fantastic speakers who presented their RTC expertise. They passionately delivered their vision around deep learning for RTC, new features of WebRTC, bridging the broadcast gap between WebRTC and RTMP, and many more hot topics within the RTC realm.
Similarly, the panel track engaged the room with much needed RTC use case discussions on a variety of themes on fitness and wellness, the future of social gaming, incorporating RTC in education, real-time community engagement, and other insightful conversations. In addition, the panelists encouraged users to create content and distribute live to their networks by using social platforms such as Socialive and LinkedIn Live.
Overall, the presentations, demos, and partner booths provided attendees with ample understanding of how the real-time communications field is evolving, shaping growth strategies, and transforming social experiences to live engagements through live content creation.
AllThingsRTC 2019 wrapped up with a networking hour, flowing with the intermingling of attendees and the Agora team. Everyone delighted on hors d’oeuvres, an assortment of drinks, and a live DJ jamming out great music. to great music. Special thanks to all the speakers, sponsors and strategic partners. We couldn’t have pulled an excellent show without you!
The future of WebRTC is strong with interactive communications and live streaming, unifying the way we work, play, and entertain and creating an immersive, exciting experience.
Be sure to be on the lookout for our upcoming series of blogs as we continue to release videos in segments of the keynote, tech, and use case tracks. Have any questions? Contact us here or join the Agora Slack channel.