An analysis from Dolby OptiView details how Group of Pictures (GOP) size impacts video bitrate, quality, and latency in LL-HLS streaming. The study demonstrates that increasing GOP size can reduce bandwidth consumption and improve video quality, but at the cost of increased zapping time and potential latency. Different video types show varying degrees of impact on bitrate and VMAF scores.
For LL-HLS, GOP size is not a tuning detail — it determines the tradeoff between bandwidth, quality, and startup latency. Dolby’s tests show that longer GOPs can lower bitrate and raise VMAF, especially for static content, but they also push zapping time and can add up to the GOP length in latency. That makes encoder settings a live product decision, not just an infrastructure one. The practical question for streaming teams is how far they can push GOP length before startup delay becomes visible. Watch which GOP settings are used for low-latency live services, especially around the 1-second, 2-second, and 6-second examples Dolby cites.
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