How we are building sub-second live streaming over MoQ

MoQSub-second live delivery over MoQ

A live stream that runs seconds behind the event is not really live, and every second of that delay costs the rights holder something. MoQ delivers live video below one second end-to-end, built on QUIC and WebTransport, outperforming even low-latency HLS and DASH, scaling through a CDN-like relay network, and supporting DRM without surrendering any of the latency advantage.

Ultra-Low-Latency LiveWebTransportDRM Support

The problem this solves

The gap between a live event and the viewer's screen is not a technical inevitability - it is a consequence of how HTTP-based streaming was designed. Segment-based delivery requires each chunk to be complete before it can be fetched, and that wait compounds across every hop from encoder to CDN to player. Even the low-latency modes of HLS and DASH reduce the gap rather than close it.

The viewer following a match sees a goal celebrated in their timeline before it appears on their screen. Premium live rights become worth less, second-screen behaviour breaks the broadcast experience, and interactive features that depend on near-synchronous audiences - polling, live betting, synchronised social - are structurally impossible.

Who this is for

This is relevant if you are:

Broadcaster

A broadcaster or rights holder whose premium live events lose value every second the stream trails social media

Sports organisation

A sports organisation that wants interactive features - synchronised reactions, live polling, real-time data overlays - that require audiences to be watching the same moment

Telco

A telco building or acquiring live streaming infrastructure who wants to lead on latency as a differentiator

How it works

1The live source publishes media objects directly to a MoQ relay over QUIC, bypassing the segment-assembly step that adds latency in HLS and DASH.

2Relays form a CDN-like distribution network: a published stream is picked up once and replicated across relays, so viewers in different regions pull from the nearest one instead of hammering the origin and the architecture scales sideways rather than upwards.

3A Shaka-based browser player connects to the nearest relay over WebTransport - a native browser API on QUIC and HTTP/3 with independent, multiplexed streams - so media arrives in real time with no plugin, no segment downloads and none of the head-of-line blocking that slows HTTP delivery down.

4DRM-protected channels and clear channels travel over the same relay infrastructure, so premium and free content share one pipeline and protecting the premium feed costs almost none of the latency advantage.

5Player performance and quality data from every session feed a telemetry pipeline, which is how the beta is monitored and measured.

What makes it different

MoQ is not a tuned version of an existing protocol - it is a protocol designed from first principles for live media at scale, now standardised at the IETF. The combination of QUIC's independent streams, a relay architecture that scales horizontally without a proprietary CDN contract, and native browser delivery over WebTransport means sub-second latency is achievable without specialist infrastructure on the viewer side. DRM support over the same pipeline removes the usual trade-off between protecting premium content and delivering it at low latency.

Current status & next steps

TestingReviewed 29 July 2026

MoQ is in controlled testing. The demo on this page is open to selected partners on invitation - the password gate is the access control in practice, which is exactly what the Testing status commits us to.

This is an early beta of Media over QUIC, so behaviour and stability vary by browser and by network. Playback only starts once the consent terms inside the demo have been accepted, and DRM channels behave inconsistently across browsers - the DRM-free Big Buck Bunny channel is the most reliable place to start.

The current beta is also geographically restricted to Austria and Poland while the relay infrastructure is being validated, and viewers elsewhere may be blocked by the underlying service.