Stream latency is the delay between your camera capturing an event and the event being displayed to viewers. When setting up your live stream, think about how the level of latency may affect your viewers.
- Lower latency: If you live chat with viewers, a lower latency is best to reply to viewer comments and questions.
- Note: With lower latency, your viewers may experience more playback buffering.
- Higher latency: If you don't interact with your audience, higher latency is not a problem.
Trade off between latency and quality
The lower the latency, the less read-ahead buffer the video player will have. The amount of read-ahead buffer is important because it's the main source of stream latency. With a lower latency, viewers are more likely to feel the issues between the encoder and the player.
Network congestion and other factors may also cause live streaming issues, which can delay your stream. Delays can happen even when you have a great network that can sustain your average streaming bitrate.
Generally, your viewers' player can handle these changes in Internet speed by keeping some extra live stream data. This function is called Buffer Health in Stats for nerds.
Manage your latency setting
In Live Control Room:
- Go to YouTube Studio.
- From the top right, click Create
Go live
.
- Enter your live stream details.
- In the right menu, click Stream or Manage.
- From the stream dashboard, click Stream Settings.
- Under 'Stream latency', select your latency.
Go live 
.Webcam and mobile streaming are always set up for interactivity. You cannot set a live stream latency for them.