Sustainable Streaming

(Based on the Article: An Efficient and Sustainable End-To-End Video Streaming Architecture)

                When viewers log into their favorite streaming service, the environmental impact it has is almost never top of mind. However, streaming has an environmental impact, which is why engineers and technologists working in the field are dedicated to finding solutions to make it more efficient and sustainable.

                One such solution is SMART-CD, a French collaborative project that allows operators and users to understand and control their environmental impact. SMART-CD is still being worked on, but the data collected so far has proved valuable, providing a level of transparency that consumers and providers hardly ever experience.

                For example, SMART-CD information collected so far shows that more people stream on smartphones than providers originally thought. Several experiments involving SMART-CD showed that different devices and networks consume different amounts of power. SMART-CD can register how much power a device uses and even implement solutions to make streaming on those devices more efficient.

                SMART-CD still needs to work out some kinks. For example, while the solution aims to provide a complete picture of the energy used in the streaming process, only CPU consumption can currently be measured on end devices. Eventually, SMART-CD will be able to diagnose a wider range of environmental impacts and perhaps even fix a few of them.

                The digital sector accounts for around 4% of greenhouse gas emissions, and video streaming accounts for 82% of consumer IP traffic. Considering these facts, finding a more efficient way to stream media to devices is imperative. That starts with diagnosing the most harmful impacts of the streaming architecture and creating solutions to address them. SMART-CD could indeed be the solution that makes streaming efficient on all devices.