Blogs

SRT Introduction

2020.04.10

SRT is an Internet transmission protocol initiated by the SRT Alliance jointly created by Haivision and Wowza. This protocol was first publicly demonstrated at the IBC exhibition in 2013 and was widely adopted by Haivsion as an open source technology in 2017. In just a few years, many companies have joined the SRT Alliance and launched products and services that support the SRT protocol. 

SRT, short for Secure Reliable Transport, which means secure and reliable transmission. It is an open source, free and flexible specification, which can realize secure, reliable and low-latency transmission and distribution of high-definition network video among multiple locations in complex Internet environment. Users of SRT technology shall experience the various advantages of the protocol:

  • Security: SRT supports AES encryption to ensure end-to-end video transmission security. For the company or organization's strategy of using firewalls to protect the security of private networks, the handshake process used by SRT supports outbound links without the need to open dangerous permanent external ports in the firewall, thereby maintaining the company's security strategy.
  • Low latency: SRT's stream data correction is configurable to meet users’needs. In a complex network environment, it can solve the problem of high transmission latency of UDT protocol to ensure low-latency video transmission.
  • High quality video: SRT uses Forward Error Correction technology (FEC) to ensure the stability of transmission and prevent the data packets loss due to the introduction of jitter, thereby ensuring the best viewing experience.
  • Open source: The SRT system is implemented using a free open source code library, which helps reduce costs for all parties. SRT deployment does not require royalties, long-term contracts or monthly subscription fees.
  • Compatibility: Since SRT is only a transmission standard, it can carry IP streams in different codec formats, including MPEG-2, H.264 and HEVC, which is different from other solutions that only support specific video and audio formats.

As a proud member of the SRT Alliance, Magewell has released software and hardware products that support the SRT protocol. The upcoming Capture Express software V3.2 is compatible with Magewell Capture products and supports sneding SRT streams in SRT Caller or SRT Listener mode. Magewell Pro Convert decoders can decode SRT streams and support up to 4Kp60 signal output.