Inside Vivo’s Live Streaming Platform: Architecture, Challenges, and Solutions

Overview

Vivo launched its live streaming platform in 2019, initially collaborating with top-tier platforms before developing independent capabilities. Over two years the platform has supported entertainment shows, low‑latency interactive streams, and corporate event broadcasts, continuously expanding features to improve user experience.

Business Background

The platform serves three major live‑streaming categories:

Classic entertainment shows with features like chat, PK, gifting, and mini‑games.

Low‑latency interactive streams powered by real‑time audio‑video technology, demanding strong interactivity and higher maintenance.

Corporate event streams (e.g., annual meetings, recruitment fairs, brand culture, pandemic‑related knowledge) that require flexible, multi‑format solutions.

All streams rely on a monitoring system that tracks traffic, network health, and business metrics, providing alerts for rapid issue resolution.

Technical Practice – 3.1 Entertainment Show Streaming

The classic entertainment stream follows a standard RTMP‑based workflow: capture (screen, camera, mic) → image processing (beauty, filters, watermarks) → H.264 encoding → RTMP transmission to central servers → edge distribution → client playback. Additional features such as chat, games, PK, and gifting are layered on top.

Four major challenges were identified:

Beautification: diverse aesthetic requirements, need for stable, high‑quality face rendering.

Message distribution: unstable group membership, message storms during peak periods.

Latency: multiple sources of delay from capture, encoding, network, and protocol.

Cost: high CDN and bandwidth expenses for RTMP delivery.

Solutions included:

Standardized and customizable beauty, filter, and sticker pipelines using internal imaging expertise.

Cloud‑side transcoding, super‑resolution, and sharpening in the push‑stream module.

Switched gift animation format from SVGA to MP4, reducing memory and file size.

Optimized player start‑up by sharing player instances, pre‑creating resources, and implementing sliding/click pre‑creation, achieving industry‑leading “second‑open” times.

Technical Practice – 3.2 Interactive Live Streaming

Interactive streams demand ultra‑low latency and strict ordering of messages. Challenges include RTMP‑induced latency, complex multi‑endpoint mixing, and information control (consistency, security, exception handling).

Three mitigation strategies were applied:

Hybrid push‑pull messaging: long‑lived IM connections combined with short‑polling HTTP during traffic spikes.

Protobuf compression and hierarchical rate‑limiting, separating business‑level and anchor‑level traffic.

Monitoring‑driven fallback: automatic switch of delivery methods when anomalies are detected.

Consistency control is achieved through client‑side batch reporting and server‑side correction, while SEI is used to embed lightweight business data in video streams. Security is enforced via dual automated and manual content review, with per‑device audits for interactive streams. Heartbeat mechanisms detect abnormal terminals for rapid recovery.

Technical Practice – 3.3 Event Live Streaming

Corporate events such as internal meetings, recruitment fairs, and product launches require stable, high‑quality streams across many locations. Solutions include:

Multi‑region server deployment with load balancing and traffic isolation.

Reusable SDKs that encapsulate common functionalities, reducing development errors.

Bandwidth optimization via internal relay, DNS‑based regional routing, and adaptive bitrate selection, enabling 4K delivery without saturating corporate networks.

Two illustrative cases:

Nationwide virtual annual meeting: internal network relays and DNS‑directed regional servers solved limited outbound bandwidth, delivering seamless 4K streams to tens of thousands of employees.

Multi‑platform broadcast: integrated internal and cloud live servers with automatic failover and a configuration platform that lets partners adjust stream endpoints, minimizing manual errors and ensuring continuous playback.

Conclusion

Vivo’s live streaming platform is still evolving, with a clear roadmap to enrich C‑end formats, standardize solutions, and provide SDKs for internal and external consumption, creating a virtuous cycle between product, technology, and business needs.