Zattoo showcases four streaming prototypes at IBC 2026
September 8, 2026 09.48 Europe/London By Jörn Krieger

Zattoo is presenting four prototypes developed during its internal Hackdays at IBC 2026 in Amsterdam, including a Media over QUIC-based live delivery system designed to reduce streaming latency to around two seconds.

The Swiss TV streaming provider will demonstrate the prototypes on production hardware at stand 5.F66 in hall 5. According to Zattoo, all four systems have been tested under real operator conditions, although none is commercially available yet.

The live delivery prototype uses Media over QUIC (MoQ), an IETF specification for live media that is still under development. The system reduced end-to-end latency by more than 80% in tests, from the 10 to 13 seconds currently achieved by its production platform to around two seconds.

The prototype receives live broadcast signals through a relay on Zattoo’s infrastructure and delivers them to browsers, Tizen WebTV and Android TV. Zattoo’s existing platform uses 1.6-second segments, compared with what the company describes as an industry norm of four to eight seconds.

Zattoo sees low-latency delivery as an important prerequisite for real-time AI applications such as speech processing, dubbing and live translation.

A second prototype is an AI-powered channel marketplace aimed at simplifying the process of creating channel line-ups. Operators can select channels from a catalogue, with the resulting proposal passed to the sales team. The approach could reduce the time required to prepare quotations from weeks to days.

The third prototype uses AI to generate subtitle tracks in languages that were not originally available for a programme. The system translates existing subtitle tracks in real time, allowing viewers to select additional languages for live and on-demand content.

The fourth project, called “AI-gor”, is a conversational discovery assistant. Instead of navigating traditional electronic programme guides, grids and content rails, users can ask natural-language questions about what they might want to watch.

“There is a lot of AI on show at IBC this year, and much of it is still at the concept stage,” said Jörg Meyer, Chief Commercial Officer at Zattoo. “Our prototypes are already running. Now we want to explore with operators which of them create real value for their business and their customers – while keeping both economic and environmental requirements in view.”

The four projects were selected from more than a dozen concepts developed during Zattoo’s annual Hackdays, during which teams have three days to build internal projects.

According to Zattoo, the prototypes form part of a longer-term AI roadmap. The company’s next generation of set-top box is planned to include a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU), allowing some AI applications to run directly on the device.

The company is also focusing on applications of AI within TV operations. Nicolas Westermann, VP Strategy at Zattoo, is scheduled to discuss this area at the IBC Content Everywhere panel “Rethinking Streaming Operations” on 11 September, 14:00-14:45, CE stage 2, hall 5 (5.G72).

Alongside the prototypes, Zattoo is showcasing its existing commercial portfolio at IBC. This includes Zattoo Modular, comprising the Orchestrate control plane, Stream for delivery and playback, and Ingest as a managed cloud headend. The company is also presenting Zattoo End2End, its fully managed service covering backend components and frontend applications.