Big Blue Marble has revealed details of a Proof of Concept for a Media over QUIC (MoQ) trial testing next-generation low-latency streaming in a live sports environment.
Powered by Big Blue Marble’s Cloud Video Kit scalable video processing and delivery engine, with support from Ateme, the trial is taking place during a major international football tournament.
An internet-native ultra-low latency streaming protocol, MoQ aims to boost fan engagement by enabling interactive experiences such as second-screen applications, live statistics and synchronised watch parties. Utilising live broadcast feeds, MoQ’s performance, scalability and operational readiness have been tested, with continuous measurements during the championship period indicating the platform provides the fastest live streaming signal in Austria. End-to-end latency is reduced by 20 to 40 seconds against comparative Austrian platforms, with the solution often surpassing terrestrial and satellite broadcasts by several seconds.
“This initiative demonstrates how innovation, cloud technologies, and operational expertise can drive the next generation of live streaming services,” said Krzysztof Bartkowski, CEO of streaming and cloud media at Big Blue Marble.
Commenting on the results, Johann Mika, chief innovation officer and owner of the Proof of Concept project at Big Blue Marble, said, “Our Proof of Concept shows that ultra-low latency streaming is now a reality, delivering the fastest live streaming signal in Austria and proving that internet-native delivery can outperform conventional OTT services.”
Big Blue Marble’s engineering team extended the open-source MoQ implementation as part of the project, adding features such as NTP timestamp insertion, end-to-end latency measurements, enhanced monitoring metadata, and backend analytics integration. Performance metrics are collected across the publisher, relay, and player environments to evaluate Quality of Experience (QoE), network performance, capacity requirements and platform scalability, said the company. Big Blue Marble’s multi-DRM solution, Cloud DRM, provides security from unauthorised access and downloading.
Ateme’s support shows sub-second end-to-end latency and broadcast-grade video quality are not a tradeoff, leveraging its TITAN transcoder and open-source solutions from the OpenMOQ consortium, said the company.
The PoC will continue throughout and for several months beyond the tournament, aiming to provide further operational insights, performance validation and to enable the evaluation of future deployment options. Big Blue Marble plans to extend the project through collaboration with additional partners such as cloud providers, content delivery networks (CDNs), technology vendors, and media organisations. The findings will help to inform future technology roadmaps for internet media delivery.
