Streaming Media
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Eluvio CEO and
co-founder Michelle Munson says the streaming industry is entering a new phase where
ultra‑low‑latency performance is no longer a niche requirement but a
fundamental expectation for global sports. After a summer of high‑pressure
testing during the FIFA World Cup, she argues that Eluvio’s Content Fabric has
demonstrated a level of consistency that conventional cloud/CDN architectures
simply cannot match.
Eluvio streamed all 104 FIFA World Cup matches in a paid
commercial pilot with a tier‑one U.S. broadcaster. Munson calls it a “capstone”
moment for the company, designed to validate direct‑to‑consumer performance at
scale. The headline metric was latency—and the numbers were stark.
“We were ahead of the broadcast with DTC streaming by seven
to ten seconds per match,” she reports. “Ahead of the best streaming service
the broadcaster had by 15 to 25 seconds. And consistently ahead of other
streaming services—typically 30 seconds to a minute.”
Crucially, she stresses that this performance was uniform
worldwide: “It didn’t drift over time, and it didn’t vary by region.” For
Munson, that consistency is what separates the Fabric from legacy approaches.
“When everyone around the world is watching the same moment, being behind is
painful,” she says.
The pilot also validated Eluvio’s ability to deliver ultra‑low‑latency
B2B broadcast feeds, which often require sub‑500‑millisecond performance
globally. Munson says Content Fabric delivered “well under 20 milliseconds” in
the U.S. for those feeds—numbers that place it in broadcast territory rather
than streaming territory.
Munson rejects the idea that ULL is about shaving
milliseconds for competitive advantage. “When you’re 10 seconds ahead of
broadcast, 15 seconds ahead of best‑case world streaming, and typically 30
seconds ahead, you’re in a different category,” she says.
Historically, she argues, low‑latency streaming has required
trade‑offs—security, ease of deployment, universality, cost. “They were too
complex, too expensive, or simply not good enough,” she says. “We don’t
compromise those things.”
Eluvio will announce the broadcaster behind the World Cup
pilot later this year (though not at IBC2026 in a couple weeks). Based on what
Munson said this was with either Fox (which aired coverage on Fox, FS1 and
streamed on Fox One) or NBCU (which held Spanish language rights to the
tournament in the US and broadcast on Telemundo with all matches streamed on
Peacock).
As large as this pilot was, Munson says her company has
already run an even larger deployment with another tier‑one sports league
(which will also not be revealed at IBC).
Munson attributes the latency gains to the Fabric’s zero‑copy
architecture, which she describes as fundamentally different from traditional
cloud/CDN workflows.
Instead of transcoding, packaging, chunking, and pushing
content through CDNs, the Fabric creates a componentised, reference‑based
representation of video, audio, and metadata. “It’s literally the same parts in
the network,” she says. Live streams, VOD, clips, and B2B feeds are all
assembled from the same underlying objects.
“There’s no republishing, retranscoding, or re‑packaging.
Clips are created instantly. One distribution serves everywhere.” Munson says
this eliminates egress fees, removes the need to store multiple renditions, and
keeps core bandwidth flat regardless of audience size.
Latency comes from combining zero‑copy with just‑in‑time
video processing, which fetches and assembles object parts without adding
delay. “It performs uniformly worldwide—game after game,” she says.
During the World Cup, she says, the broadcaster delivered
feeds “literally a few days before kick-off and just went.” Because of just‑in‑time
publishing, the system was ready as soon as the live feeds and front‑end
experience were in place.
Many recent ULL solutions rely on WebRTC or proprietary
protocols that introduce compatibility challenges.
Eluvio says it maintains standard DASH and HLS delivery
while reducing end-to-end consumer latency. For broadcaster contribution and
distribution, the platform supports SRT outputs with sub-second latency.
According to Munson, this is achieved by changing the
underlying content routing architecture rather than replacing established
playback standards.
Instead of repeatedly retrieving manifests and media
segments from origin servers, Content Fabric distributes reusable content
components throughout the network, assembling streams dynamically as requests
arrive.
Because requests are fulfilled from distributed content
objects rather than repeatedly generated assets, Eluvio argues that scalability
becomes independent of audience size.
Munson emphasises that the Fabric doesn’t require
broadcasters to change their workflows. Inputs remain standard—SRT, transport
stream, RTMP—and outputs are standard DASH and HLS. The platform supports HEVC
multiview, all major DRMs, server‑side ad insertion, discontinuities, Dolby
Atmos, and HDR10. Eluvio will announce live Dolby Vision support at IBC.
Munson says the fabric could deploy Media over QUIC, but
Eluvio hasn’t needed it: “We’ve no gaps in performance to fill.”
“QUIC is compelling for real‑time interactive use cases,”
she says, but “for one‑to‑many distribution, it doesn’t offer a benefit.”
A single pipeline for broadcast and streaming
At NAB earlier this year Eluvio talked about extending
Content Fabric into broadcast distribution. Historically, broadcast
contribution and consumer streaming have relied on entirely separate
infrastructures. Satellite and dedicated transport networks handle affiliate
distribution. OTT platforms operate through cloud encoders and CDNs.
Eluvio is attempting to collapse these workflows into one
platform.
Using the same underlying content representation,
broadcasters can ingest transport streams and distribute them globally to
affiliates via SRT while simultaneously serving consumer OTT applications from
the identical source.
The company says this enables broadcast-quality contribution
and DTC streaming with functions like DVR, VOD creation and archive generation
all from a single distribution pipeline.
For organisations operating premium live sports, the
potential reduction in duplicated workflows could significantly simplify
operations.
“Our company exploded this year”
Munson describes 2024–2025 as a breakout period for Eluvio.
“Our company has just exploded this year,” she says. Broadcasters are looking
for simplification, efficiency, and picture quality. She believes Fabric
represents that breakthrough.
Sports organisations are also using Eluvio for direct
monetisation, unlocking “dark markets” because the platform is inexpensive and
globally scalable. According to Munson, the architecture enables the
organisation to operate with a small technical team while expanding
monetisation beyond territories covered by traditional broadcast licensing.
Clients including global club rugby league the United
Rugby Championship and URC’s partner, European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR),
streamed around 300 live events on Fabric for the 2025/26 season. Cricket
Australia, the country’s governing body for professional men’s and women’s
cricket, have also piloted a Fabric deployment.
Munson again hints that in the U.S., Eluvio is working with
a tier‑one league “second to none,” though details remain under wraps.
