Table of Contents
Where the delay comes from
Every stream runs a little behind real life. This page lists each piece of the rig that adds delay, roughly how much, and whether you can change it. Use it when chat says you are “way behind” and you want to know what to turn down.
The short version: the Safety buffer and the Head start for viewers are the two big settings you control. The platform's own player is the other big one. Everything else is small.
The delay, piece by piece
Numbers are typical. Your total is roughly the sum of every row that applies to your setup.
| Piece | Delay it adds | Can you change it? |
|---|---|---|
| Camera / phone encoder (Companion or your encoder app) | Under 0.1 s to encode each frame. The keyframe interval (normally 2 s) sets how long a viewer may wait for the first picture after a reconnect, not the steady delay. | In the encoder app. Leave the keyframe interval at 1–2 s. |
| Extra cameras into the Companion director (WiFi cameras through the router) | About 1–2.5 s. The director keeps a 1 s cushion so WiFi bursts do not cause audio drop-outs, and speeds up slightly to catch up once it is more than 2.5 s behind, back down to 1.5 s. | No. Only applies to extra cameras, not the phone's own camera. |
| Voice isolation (audio clean-up) | About 40 ms of audio. Video is held to match, so lip-sync stays right. | Turn voice isolation off to remove it. Most people cannot notice 40 ms. |
| Music removal | None added to the stream. It takes up to about 5 s to react when music starts (it listens in roughly 1 s windows), which is a reaction time, not a delay. | Off or on. It does not change the delay either way. |
| A/V offset (Companion settings) | Only what you set. It shifts the sound against the picture to fix lip-sync; it is not meant to add delay. | Leave at 0 unless lip-sync is off. |
| Bonding (SRTLA) on the router | Very little by itself, a few tens of milliseconds over the slowest link in use. Busy or weak links add more, which is why bad links are dropped from the bond. | Indirectly: see Link priority. |
| Safety buffer (SRT latency) | 4 s by default. This is the biggest piece you control. It is the window SRT has to re-send anything lost on the way to your receiver. | Yes: Bonding → Safety buffer. 2–8 s is the useful range. |
| Receiver / your server (relay to the platforms) | Under 0.5 s when it only passes the stream through. If it re-encodes (for example a lower-quality copy for a second platform), add about 0.5–1.5 s for that copy. | Pass-through where you can. A faster encoder preset re-encodes with a little less delay. |
| Overlays | None to the stream. They are drawn by your encoder or the director as the video goes out. | — |
| Head start for viewers (backup stream) | Exactly what you pick: off, 10, 20, 30, 45 or 60 s, or Automatic. It holds the stream back on purpose so a dropout can be covered by the backup before viewers see it. | Yes: Head start for viewers. Off removes it. |
| The platform (Twitch, YouTube, Kick…) | Usually 2–5 s on low-latency mode, 10–30 s on normal mode. This is often the largest single piece. | In the platform's own settings: pick low latency or ultra-low latency. |
Start-up only: when a stream (re)connects, the receiver spends a few seconds working out what it is receiving before it starts sending. This does not add to the delay once you are live.
A typical total
With the default settings, one phone, voice isolation on and no head start:
- Phone encoder: about 0.1 s
- Voice isolation: 0.04 s
- Bonding: about 0.1 s
- Safety buffer: 4 s
- Server pass-through: about 0.3 s
- Platform on low latency: about 3 s
That is roughly 7–8 seconds from your camera to a viewer. With a 20 s head start it becomes about 27 s.
Making it lower
- Turn on the platform's low-latency mode. It costs you nothing on the rig side.
- Lower the Safety buffer if your links are steady. About 3 s can work on good, still signal; 2 s is often too tight on a moving rig. If viewers start seeing glitches or freezes, raise it again; that means the buffer was too short to recover lost data.
- Turn off Head start for viewers, or pick a shorter one, if chat delay matters more than hiding dropouts.
- Avoid re-encoding on the server when one copy can be sent everywhere.
- Voice isolation, music removal and overlays are not worth turning off for delay.
Lower delay always means less time to recover. If the stream starts breaking up, the delay was protecting you; put it back up.