Voices of Video

Cloud Bills Made You Cry? Gamers Already Fixed That

• NETINT Technologies • Season 3 • Episode 30

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Ever notice how interactive video feels great one moment and laggy the next? We dig into why - and what it takes to make streams feel as immediate and fair as a top-tier multiplayer game.

Coming from a gaming-first background, we talk candidly about round-trip latency, jitter, and why 30 ms one way is the magic threshold for experiences where people don’t just watch, but participate.

We walk through the hard lessons of early cloud gaming, from capex-heavy builds to routing realities, and show how those same insights are now reshaping streaming:

  • Low-latency global networks with real-time visibility
  • DDoS resilience without five-layer ticket gauntlets
  • Predictable transport and proximity that let teams deploy their own edge stacks and own performance

The result is a model in which encoding density, session stability, and viewer happiness are measurable and repeatable, without runaway cloud costs.

We also unpack a practical hybrid strategy: keep always-on, latency-sensitive workloads on dedicated infrastructure (where you can tune kernel, NICs, and accelerators), and use the cloud for bursts or experiments.

AI adds another dimension - inference near the session, VPUs for real-time AV1/HEVC, GPUs for rendering, and the ability to attach the right accelerator in the right region on demand.

As streaming and gaming continue to merge - think reward-enabled streams, Discord watch-togethers, or VR rendered in the cloud - the lesson is clear:

Be where your users are. Keep round trips tight. Control your own cost and quality.


We cover:

• Gaming-born low-latency infrastructure for streaming
 • Lessons from early cloud gaming and unit economics
 • Why round-trip latency and jitter define interactive QoE
 • DDoS resilience and transparent incident response
 • CDN roles vs. building on low-latency IaaS
 • Hybrid strategy for cost control and sovereignty
 • VPUs/GPUs for encoding, cloud gaming, and AI inference
 • Streaming–gaming convergence across Twitch, Discord, and VR
 • How to test and scale with on-demand regional hardware

If you’re exploring next-gen video encoding or interactive streaming, check out NETINT’s VPU lineup - built for real-time video at scale.

If this resonates, subscribe, share with a teammate who owns QoE, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. Got a use case or question? Reach out - let’s dig in together.

Stay tuned for more in-depth insights on video technology, trends, and practical applications. Subscribe to Voices of Video: Inside the Tech for exclusive, hands-on knowledge from the experts. For more resources, visit Voices of Video.

Voices of Video:

Voices of video. Voices of video. The voices of video. Voices of video.

Stefan Ideler:

So um me and Wouter here will explain a little bit today about what we do, what we see the changes in in the market. I'll be working with course with NetIns, where we're here today, part of the booth. Again, thank you so much for having us here. And also the challenges that the clients face the ways that we try to solve these can be related to the details, network capacity, scaling capacity, even sovereignty nowadays. So in the next 10-15 minutes, we'll have a little bit of one-on-one with each other. They'll also present the kind of the customer viewpoint, and I will answer the technical viewpoint and I'll exalk his challenges.

Wouter Koppert:

Yeah, Stefan, thank you very much. Maybe good to give a quick introduction about myself. I'm Wouter Koppert the development manager within i3d.net and SmartDC. For the people that don't know us, we are infrastructure as a service provider, mainly focused on serving the gaming industry with our low latency network. So it's all about hosting multiplayer games on a worldwide global scale. More than 60 data center locations across the globe. And now, since a few years, we opened up our doors for everything non-gaming related that does need a low latency infrastructure, so to say. And one of these markets is streaming, and we see things going on there in that market, and we see a way for us to tap into there. And that's where we talk where we want to talk about today. And that's the interactive streaming part because Stefan, there is a lot of uh going on. Before this, you saw quite some linear types of streams, right? Where there was not that interactive way with audiences itself. Can you tell me a bit more like how did we saw the shift and from a technical point of view, how we as i3d.net are focusing on that? Sure thing.

Stefan Ideler:

And also, of course, I forgot to introduce myself. That's really good one. Look at it there. So I'm Stefan Libra, the co-founder of the company. Uh, started it uh 21 years ago in Rotterdam via the Netherlands. And nowadays we have around 185 people with offices here, of course, in Rotterdam, in Paris, in Montreal. And there's a few most souls in Singapore nowadays. So yes, so that's a really good question. So when we started, that was before there was cloud, people were just barely playing around with virtualization, uh, but there were already streaming needs back then, which was quite traditional streaming, especially the equest costs back in those days. I think when we started, we were paying 50 euros the megabit in Europe. Uh it was something something different. Uh, for us, the biggest change was around 220 when we saw uh the first attempts of cloud streaming really getting started. Um, our parent company, uh Ubisoft, invested very big into uh Google Stadia, which uh to us was our first big experience with uh um dealing with cloud game stream content, which it certainly became interactive, right? So uh users not also shooting the game, so so you're dealing with the round tip latency instead of just the latency from you from the server towards you if you're just watching content. So that also immediately made the challenges a lot more real. So that's also when we as a company decided to change our narrative that we wanted to serve of the world's populations uh within 30 milliseconds or less. So even if you have interactive streaming content, 30 times two, 60 milliseconds round trip, it's still a pretty good experience with most solutions uh out there. Um but the the the challenges, which is also why we saw a lot of at least in the game streaming market, including Stadia and others, uh uh they unfortunately didn't make it because the challenges, of course, your costs, and ever-evolving hardware, ever-evolving capex that you need to do. Um I know that you have a client in our data center, I'll name them, but they told me that a whole suite that was uh 40 racks of equipment that can serve maybe 2,000 concurrent users for that cloud-filling project. So when I think about it, the cost per user and the hardware investments definitely um is a very big problem for a lot of the initiatives. And but now you see companies trying to do a little bit more in a smarter way, and and that's where it becomes more fun.

Wouter Koppert:

Hey, and Stefan, do you think then especially when you look more into the media and entertainment industry as a whole, right? Our background obviously is coming from gaming in that sense. Do you think that with the solutions that we provide right now, right? And especially compared to the cloud, where do you see the people that eventually started off to hop on the cloud bandwagon and now change a bit more to go to a hybrid infrastructure? Can you tell me a bit more about how people think about that, so to say?

Stefan Ideler:

So when I look what was important and still is important in gaming, it's ultimately the end user experience. If the gamer is happy, he's more likely to buy your next service, your next game, your next DLC, your next microtransaction. And how why is it how do you make a gamer happy? Of course, you need to make a good game. Well, that's desktop round. Same, same like the content that you need to stream needs to be interesting. Uh like okay, if it's like a Champions League soccer match, it's probably interesting enough to have enough users. Similarly, if you make another FIFA game, there's definitely enough people who will buy it. The second challenge is how to make them happy is be where the players are with your content. So that means low latency. And especially if they have to play together in the game, you want to make sure that the latency also between the players is low enough to have it to make it feel like a fair game, like a fair match. And it's intended that it isn't due to the internet that they might be losing, how it's only due to their own skills. I mean, that's the goal. Um, similarly, if you are cloud streaming or streaming with interactive content, suddenly that latency starts to matter. And especially when, let's say later on the evening or during the day, you might not have enough people in a specific city or country to play together. So your matchmaking pool expands, and you're certainly playing across the whole continent together, then suddenly the connectivity between all of those data centers where those players enter also starts to become important. Um, and that's uh that's that's where we spend a lot of our efforts in. So we we will we will know exactly how the bits and bytes go from your home PC or your home headset all the way towards our data centers, I like. Uh, and being able to guarantee that, give you insight at any time without five-layer ticket systems, yeah, is is key because the gamers, but also your other users, but we had pitchforks at your socials trying to ask you what's going on if the game crashes. Uh, you need to know immediately why. Yeah, and that's how you can people get people happy. If you don't say anything, frustration builds, or if the game keeps going down because of the DDoS attack, frustration builds, eventually, if that happens a few times in a row, they will not come back. But that's a paid user lost. Um, but yeah, if you you can prevent that by, of course, making sure it doesn't happen. And if it does happen, make sure the information is crystal clear, nearly instant, so you can keep your users given a good explanation.

Wouter Koppert:

Clear. And what I want to tap into as well is like um obviously a CDN is a big part of the video deliveries when you look in the media and entertainment industry for streaming. Can you tell us a bit more? Like, what is the difference between us as an infrastructure as a service provider with a low latency network compared to the big CDN providers out there? And where do we fit in?

Stefan Ideler:

So in SSD also have a CDN, of course, but that's mainly tailored for one specific case: game downloads, patches, and to the to the user clients. Um I think we also have a lot of clients who consume our infrastructure network capacity to build their own CDNs as well. So uh they might automatically, using their form, get compute in, let's say, 20 different locations from us, and uh automatically deploy their own software on top. I mean, I saw a friend from Varnish to boost away here and so on and yes, and then you're then you're good to go. Um and we promise to you that at least the network quality and the server quality that you get will be the best possible quality there is because it has to be good enough for gaming. And if it's good enough to satisfy gamers, it's definitely good enough to satisfy uh content viewers. So for us, when we looked at the the the the C market, of course, we realized we're not gonna compete with our own CDM product because the CDM market is massive, lots of players out there. Uh if you don't have unique identifying properties, it's it's a price price to the bottom, right? Um, but what we can help with is having this super reliable infrastructure everywhere which you can consume on demand, uh, with a network quality that's the best, almost the best possible there is, in my opinion. And we're happy to let people test this free, just just just reach out to us. Plus, because we have all that server by methods in our control, there's a lot of flexibility how you want your server provisioned. Do you need, for example, video trust coding cards, then our friendship Let ins? We can easily deploy this in all of the regions where we are. Do you need specific GPUs? Do you need inferencing specific chipsets? Yeah. Because we have that all in-house, we can think along with the clients on this.

Wouter Koppert:

And that's a very interesting point, I think, that you mentioned right there, because uh obviously the cloud is taking up a prominent role these days, also in the streaming industry itself. But what I see and yeah, where the market is heading to is that people want to have the control back of their own infrastructure with them, right? Can you can you take us a bit into the story in the hybrid infrastructure and taking back control instead of having everything built on the cloud?

Stefan Ideler:

So there's actually two two narratives at the same time. At one hand, you have the the sovereignty discussions, which is something especially in the last year, where people want to take back control. That's more like for compliance reasons and and and because they might fear that they might be getting priced out or or or or the data might be accessed, and that's all. But that's definitely becoming a hot topic in all the also all the public tenders, for example, in the Netherlands, where we participate in, they all want the sovereignty guaranteed or an action plan how to act from the current cloud providers to have a sovereign solution. Uh but the second part, which is of course for us something we see all the time in gaming, people started using clouds and the whole set of services because it's extremely convenient. It's extremely convenient and nice also for developers to get started with. But now the interest rates are high and the the amount of game companies going backwards and layoffs and also layoffs in text in general is is is is really really almost sad to see. So people are starting to look at these these cloud bills and think, do we really need to put everything in there? Yeah. Even the stuff that runs 247, 365 days a year. Can we do that a little bit smarter? Can't we go hybrid? We put the capacity that runs more than a couple of weeks a month on these these bare metal uh data center providers, so we profit from the costs and reliability. And for my flexibility needs, of course, the burst, I keep using the cloud. Yeah, because that's the premium that you pay for cloud, you pay for the flexibility and convenience. Uh, I'm not saying it's a bad product, not at all, but use it smartly. Um and like five years ago, this was pretty much on deaf ears, except for a few companies who started to realize it. Nowadays it's every single discussion that you have with the clients. Like, how can I get my costs under control? Or how can I get my quality on the control? Because at a very large cloud provider, you are ultimately just a number. Uh so if if your users have a problem and you need something right now, yeah, then then it helps working with a party where where you are being seen as a valuable uh partner.

Wouter Koppert:

Obviously, we are at the net in booth, right? So we use synetic cards within our infrastructure. Can you tell us a bit more how we do that?

Stefan Ideler:

So this partnership started out something magical. Like, like we um we had uh a very nice uh starting case client, and then we had a couple of more who were active in the video transposing industry with some of their product portfolios. One of them also was doing interactive streaming, so it was really like a partnership made from heaven. Um, but what we really liked with NetEd is also the flexibility, thinking along, thinking in a true partnership model where um we both we both do our effort. Um uh and and of course they said you want to be here at IBC. Do you want to be a department of Blue? Of course. On the other hand, we also have Netting cards in stock in Asia and in Europe and US, ready to go for whenever someone needs them. Maybe just when we went in the data center to install them, it's literally plug and play, so you don't even need to be provisioning your machines, it's just a simple one-time engineering action. So um, and I did many thoughts, of course, with Mark in the in the voice series on LinkedIn. Uh, and that that's something that we really value as a company. Uh, and that's why it's very uh been a very big pleasure to work with NetInd and the solutions actually work, which is very important towards the customers, right?

Wouter Koppert:

Yes. Good to hear that. Hey, in terms of the future, uh Stefan, right? We as Id.net, we always looked into the future, or we've always looked into the improvements, especially inside the gaming industry. Uh, one important aspect there is cloud gaming, which our netin partners are also focusing on. Can you tell me a bit more how that transition will go into into the cloud gaming market, so to say?

Stefan Ideler:

So a few years ago, cloud gaming had a bit of a tough time, right? But I definitely see this revitalizing now. Uh, we get a lot more demands from all of our existing clients, also new clients, about possible STIM solutions. Uh and that's also because it kind of piggybacks on also the AI inferencing needs. Yeah. So people start to consider already, okay, maybe we need specific cards for this, and oh, but might as well also do their specific cards for transcoding or for cloud gaming portfolio. Um but uh yeah, AI is pushing this whole consideration for people to think, okay, maybe you go by metals again and and take it in the control, and then we fix all the things at once, which is which is nice. Yeah, but also within a few years, it will be normal that every game server will be requiring local low latency inferency capacity for some of their AI tasks and their agents. Um, we've also been exploring similar ways how we can even further on-demand VPU capacity, GPU capacity, uh that that essentially also offering an over IP so you can make ducklicks in a panel that you can access the resources only when you need them. So I think that's going to be the future for us to differentiate against the competition. The cloud providers, sorry, ProCOP, is um uh being extremely flexible and offering as much flexibility as we possibly can uh with these physical hardware components and all of the data centers.

Wouter Koppert:

It's good. Hey, one other question from my side. You see that streaming and gaming are getting integrated much more. You already mentioned it. We have a couple of customers also running on our infrastructure together with the net cards, uh, where we enable the transcoding and the encoding and the video delivery for them, so to say. But I want to know maybe a bit more because it's very interesting. Do you see that integration from gaming and streaming? I give Twitch as an example, right? Which is a pioneer there. Do you think that will be something for the next couple of years that will be very interesting to focus on for the infrastructure as a server side?

Stefan Ideler:

I think streaming and games will never go away again. Because uh, yes, people stream over Twitch, they stream over Discord, they the there's lots of even incentives on all of these streaming platforms to play a certain game so you can win more awards, or you can uh uh get codes for your in-game items if you watch the stream, but also if you do the stream. So for my my I have a nephew, he's 16, if his whole life is online, on Twitch, on Discord, on streaming platforms, and I'm playing games together with his friends. It's only it's only gonna get bigger. As more and more young people draw up, it it's it's only going to be more just normal that that you're essentially streaming all the time with all kinds of different services and everything with interactivity, uh, even directly to your 3D headset, for example. Uh a few boots away from a great company where the whole tech that they're building on is streaming it directly to your virtual reality headset, so you don't even need a powerful PC at home anymore. So you can just use it while traveling. I mean, these are kinds of massive innovations happening. But still, that stream needs to be generated somewhere at a server with cards, and that's where we come in.

Wouter Koppert:

Yeah. Thank you very much for that. I think looking at the time, um, Stefan, I want to thank you. Thank you very much for all the insights that you gave us and provide us. Looking at your audience right now, if there are any questions for Stefan in particular, feel free to raise a hand.

Stefan Ideler:

Or reach out to us anytime here. We're gonna be here uh yeah the whole day, the whole weekend, uh, and happy to engage with uh who must know a little bit more about what we do. Yep, thanks. Thanks.

Voices of Video:

This episode of Voices of Video is brought to you by NetInt Technologies. If you are looking for cutting-edge video encoding solutions, check out NetInts products at netint.com.

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Mark Donnigan

Host
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Jan Ozer

Co-host
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Anita Fejter

Producer
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Stefan Ideler

Guest
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Wouter Koppert

Guest