Bitmovin and Cloudflare demo MoQ playback at NAB 2026
Bitmovin and Cloudflare demonstrated Media over QUIC (MoQ) playback at NAB 2026, showcasing an emerging IETF standard for sub-second latency live streaming at scale. Bitmovin integrated MoQ into its Player Web X as an isolated plugin, while Cloudflare deployed open-source MoQ relays across its global network, emphasizing an open infrastructure approach for the new standard.
Key Takeaways
- Bitmovin added Media over QUIC support to Player Web X as an isolated plugin, with no changes to the player core codebase.
- Cloudflare deployed moq-rs relays across more than 330 cities to fan out streams from one viewer to millions.
- MoQ is being developed as an IETF standard through the MoQ Working Group, with engineers from Cloudflare, Meta, Google, and Cisco involved.
- Cloudflare said its MoQ relay implementation is fully open source and the same code runs on its production network.
- Bitmovin and Cloudflare demonstrated a live MoQ stream at NAB 2026 using Player Web X and Cloudflare’s relay network.
Why It Matters
The immediate takeaway is that MoQ is no longer just a standards effort: Bitmovin and Cloudflare demonstrated live playback at NAB 2026, with sub-second latency delivery running through Player Web X and Cloudflare’s global relay network. The broader ecosystem angle is interoperability, since the demo used an open IETF standard, open-source relays, and no proprietary handshakes. That matters for a sector still anchored to HLS and DASH, where duplicated segment requests and peak-event load remain structural pain points. Watch whether Bitmovin extends MoQ beyond the isolated plugin and whether more IETF MoQ implementations join the same relay/player stack.
Read full article at bitmovin.com