Why do my live-streams have to be transcoded?

Your live-streams received from your live-encoder are not compatible with all players and devices. Different platforms, devices and players, such as various ConnectedTV platforms, different mobile devices and browser types, require different formats/protocols in order to be able to display a live-stream. Lightcast.com therefore transcodes the streams received from clients all common formats to ensure maximum device compatibility and on websites, mobile apps, and TV apps. This transcoding service is automatically included with all Lightcast.com Service Packages and is processed by our US Transcoding Farm in Matawan, NJ. The transcoding process always (and with any serious live-streaming vendor, OVP and CDN) uses bandwidth - both for ingesting the live-stream into the transcoding farm (input bandwidth) and for passing the transcoded streams on to the CDN for global delivery to all devices/platforms (output bandwidth). Instead of charging for live-stream-protocol-transcoding services, Lightcast.com simply accounts for the input and output bandwidth as 2 viewers whenever your live-stream is live.