Launched by Haivision in 2017, and freely available on GitHub via the Mozilla Public License 2.0, SRT is an innovative UDP-based protocol enabling high-quality, low-latency video streaming across unpredictable networks.

With secure, end-to-end AES encryption, optimized packet retransmission and controllable buffering, SRT leverages the best of IP standard attributes while maintaining compatibility to traditional UDP based broadcast and streaming workflows. Its main purpose is to send live TV streams across the Internet, for example, to upload to streaming services as a low latency replacement to RTMP.

While an SRT Alliance was also formed to manage and support its implementation, the Open Source nature of SRT undoubtedly played a key role in driving its adoption in both the community and end users.

Thanks to collaborative development, initial support for SRT has already made its way into the latest releases of the “big three” Open Source multimedia frameworks: GStreamer, VLC and FFmpeg.

With the SRT Alliance now boasting over 100 members, and the Open Source community supporting the protocol, there is little doubt that SRT is well on its way to becoming the de facto standard.

(Originally published in Linux Format magazine, Issue 237, June 2018)