Self-Service Audio/Video Streaming

by 0x7ab021aca91ceb3c45086894b03dcfac38031529 (Jusdem#1529)

Should the following Tier 5: up to $120,000 USD, 6 months vesting (1 month cliff) grant in the Platform Contributor category be approved?

Abstract

Over the last year our team at Serraform has been fully committed to supporting the Decentraland ecosystem with a fully managed, enterprise grade, adaptive video streaming service. We’ve successfully worked through all the challenges of streaming into the Decentraland for events of all shapes and sizes, and are now ready to take it to the next level.

We believe that streaming audio and video into Decentraland should be as easy as posting on Facebook, and as flexible as Lego blocks. With your support, we can provide the “remote” you need to drive content at scale with no limits, no buffering, and no jitter.

We need a Decentraland-first streaming platform that enables any streaming need, and one that can grow with our community.

Grant size

120,000 USD

Beneficiary address

0xBb626c562D5b89961Eb2a2519e49d97D132189F7

Email address

justen@serraform.com

Description

Streaming limitless events with the best user experience requires global CDN networks with a massive amount of bandwidth that can scale in real-time; something most of us just don’t have access to. The answer is simply to harness the power of the cloud, efficiently and securely.

With a combined 30+ years of experience in cloud consulting with some of the largest fortune 500 companies through infrastructure, development, automation, and cybersecurity. Not to mention we’re a strong player within the community – Serraform is uniquely positioned to deliver a self-service video streaming platform for Decentraland that is fully-automated and simple to use.

With your support, we plan to further invest in the development of a streaming platform hosted in the cloud and secured with state-of-the-art cybersecurity and compliant solutions. To do this we need to take what we’ve learned and built so far and automate its ability to service you at a moment’s notice. We need the service to scale beyond what our team can manage and let anybody use it themselves when they want, while reducing overall running costs for the community.

We need to develop an interface and an API that can be used for any parcel owner to leverage the power of our streaming platform, allowing the ability for users to upload any audio/video file for streaming, or copy/paste in a Twitch/YouTube stream URL for those who prefer that route. We also know the community wants to broadcast Zoom podcasts or OBS streams directly into Decentraland but lack the ability to do it at scale and without jitter – we've been servicing all these use-cases, and now we need to package it up in a simple to use service for anybody to use on their own time. Simply upload your video, paste your link, or request a RTMP URL/key and let the fully automated service handle the rest.

If you’re a developer you might build an interface inside Decentraland or within your own tool if you prefer not to use ours, then leverage our API to deliver on the streaming magic for you. Rent out your venue and allow guests to control their content natively inside your own parcel. Have a club night where your VIP guests control the stream via Twitch or a jukebox collection of content over a stream deck you built! The possibilities will be endless, and this is just the beginning.

Feature highlights PowerPoint: https://tinyurl.com/5b58ccx9

Specification

We plan to develop this solution on Microsoft Azure cloud using fully automated code to provision isolated streaming “tenants” using modern DevOps practices. We believe the solution should be cloud-native and have no single points of failure or need for manual intervention, while being able to deliver on your security and compliance needs with maximum horsepower and optimum user experience across the globe.

In addition to our proposed website UI, we plan to develop an API ‘under the hood’ to allow 3rd party app integration, allowing anybody to integrate their own parcel and control preferences with our streaming solution, either in-game or through 3rd party tooling or websites. Why not build your own jukebox collection and let party-goers control your screens within your parcel? Imagine building a stream deck inside your venue!

The content will be encoded with H.264 studio-grade quality up to 1080p, optimized for Decentraland events, and securely stored using Microsoft’s award-winning Defender security toolset. The streams will be provided as adaptive M3U8 streams, meaning various bitrates and resolutions will be available, accommodating any bandwidth limitations – this basically means you get a buffer-free experience on every stream at the best quality possible anywhere and on any device.

The service will support ingestion of any external stream (via OBS or Zoom for example) using an RTMP URL/key pair, but also be able to broadcast streams directly from Twitch and/or YouTube if you already have a URL.

We plan to leverage Verizon’s global premium CDN network allowing for dedicated content delivery to anybody around the world at very low latency and zero buffering. We want to be able to ingest any video source, and re-broadcast it directly into Decentraland, providing a great viewing experience for over 1700+ user events. No more skipping OBS streams for large audiences!

We currently offer this as a service, and we manage it ourselves on behalf of our customers. The goal now is to take your needs and our solution and develop a fully automated backend streaming platform that is self-serviceable by you via our website/API and doesn’t require our team to manage any aspect of it other than growing it based on your continued feedback. We want to scale this working solution and reduce the costs overall for the entire Decentraland community, while making it far more versatile for anybody to leverage.

Personnel

In addition to the below personnel, we plan to further engage with the Decentraland and blockchain talent pool for certain development aspects around our proposed solution.

• Jusdem – Tech lead and product visionary
• Paul K. – 12x Microsoft cloud MVP and cybersecurity guru
• Prabh T. – Cloud services and operations expert
• Aaron H. – Business and community development expert
• Patmacs – Decentraland dev ninja and DCL Connect founder
• ??? – UI/UX developer
• ??? – Blockchain developer
• ??? – Cloud DevOps and automation engineer

Roadmap and milestones

Communication Plan: Decentraland forum with monthly status updates.

Estimated Timeline: 3-6 months

• Month 1 - Initiate
  • Finalized production design
  • Personnel identified and hired
  • Dev work started
• Month 2 - Automated VOD
  • Automated provisioning of streaming "tenants"
  • Pre-recorded (eg. MP4) file uploads
  • Audio and video encoding (H.264)
    • Makes playback suitable for variety of devices
  • Up to 1 year stream retention/storage
    • Playback any stream for up to a year
  • Unlimited number of audio/video assets
    • Build a library of your favorite streams
• Month 3 - Automated Live
  • Live (RTMP) stream ingestion
    • Broadcast your own stream from anywhere
    • Works with OBS and Zoom!
  • Live stream recording
    • Record and playback anytime
  • 24/7 stream availability with bandwidth scaling
    • No more limits on audience sizes
  • Audio/video output in M3U8 format
    • Supported by Decentraland
    • Adaptive multi-bitrate
• Month 4/5 - API Controller
  • Twitch and YouTube streaming capabilities
    • Auto-provisioned upon request
  • API backend
  • Secure data at rest and in transit
• Month 5/6 - Frontend Controller
  • Website front-end UI
    • Metamask integration
    • Fully self-service and automated
  • Pricing and Payment Methods

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO