At IBC 2026 

Building on their strategic partnership, Ceeblue and Layercake make the unthinkable possible: scalable sub-second streaming over standard DRM, SSAI, and CDN workflows with easy-to-use orchestration. 

[Amsterdam, Netherlands] – September 8, 2026 – Following their initial strategic integration to orchestrate sub-second end-to-end streaming at scale, Ceeblue and Australian media technology company, Layercake, today announced the expansion of their partnership with the full production rollout of an advanced Digital Rights Management (DRM) framework alongside revolutionary Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI). Just a year ago, serving studio-grade protected content with dynamic ad insertion under one second over standard, Web Real-Time Streaming (WebRTS)-certified CDNs was considered technically unthinkable. Powered by the WebRTS technology recently voted Streaming Media Europe’s Streaming Innovation of the Year, the two companies’ combined efforts shatter this barrier, unlocking massive monetization as well as premium compliance on a global scale for OTT broadcasters, streaming sports rights holders, and live event platforms. 

Production-Ready DRM: Unlocking Premium Rights & Revenue 

Building directly upon the integration of Ceeblue’s sub-second WebRTS streaming with Layercake’s orchestration and workflow management platform, Streamcake, the two companies now support studio-grade content protection framework in live production on sub-second streams. The upgraded feature set supports both major industry encryption schemes, CENC and CBCS, which unlocks full coverage across the Widevine, PlayReady, and FairPlay DRM ecosystems over DASH, HLS/CMAF, Low-Latency HLS, and WebRTS delivery channels. 

Engineered for efficiency and extreme security, the DRM architecture introduces three strategically vital innovations: 

• Encrypt Once at Ingest: Encryption metadata is computed and persisted at the origin, eliminating redundant processing and ensuring content is encrypted only once rather than per-output.
  

• Passthrough at the Edge: Edge and relay nodes forward protected streams without ever holding decryption keys, drastically lowering edge compute costs while materially reducing the key-exposure attack surface. 

• Open Integration Architecture: Built-in trigger hooks allow seamless interoperability with self-managed or third-party KMS/DRM backends, currently supporting Google Secret Manager. 

This production capability directly addresses contractual content-protection requirements, unblocking deals for premium tier-1 live sports and entertainment streaming that were previously relegated to much higher latencies by the limitations of HLS/DASH streaming. 

Breakthrough Ultra-Low Latency SSAI Monetization 

Alongside robust content protection, the expanded integration delivers Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI). Until now, operators had to choose between latency and monetization. But now, the combination of sub-second delivery, full-fledged DRM, and seamless SSAI running on standard CDNs gives sports and live broadcast operators a huge incentive to go ultra-low latency. 

Transforming Global Verticals 

By coupling Streamcake’s automated cloud control plane, which makes management and scaling intuitive and reliable, with Ceeblue’s WebRTS origins, the combined solution delivers targeted value across core verticals: 

• OTT Sports & Betting: Eliminates the “spoiler effect” by aligning digital delivery precisely with live play. Feeds delivered under one second expand live-betting windows, combat courtsiding, and protect high-value rights with DRM. 
  

• iGaming & Live Auctions: Provides real-time interactivity to thousands of global users at the same time, allowing hybrid on-site and remote play / bidding. The immediacy of real-time interactivity maximizes Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) and engagement, and ensures auction integrity. 

• Corporate Comms & Live Commerce: Drives interactive corporate town halls over HTTP, which easily traverses strict enterprise firewalls, while empowering live commerce platforms to handle massive viral traffic surges with automatic edge scaling. 

“When we first integrated with Streamcake, our goal was to prove sub-second latency at global scale is easy to implement,” said Lawton Cheney, CCO at Ceeblue. “Today, we’ve taken that foundation to the next step. Delivering sub-second live video, with studio-grade DRM and SSAI over standard CDNs is a game-changer. Our expertise with WebRTS, which was just voted Streaming Media Europe’s Streaming Innovation of the Year, is what makes this possible. We are enabling sports rights holders and premium broadcasters to secure, monetize, and scale their most valuable live content without technical compromises.” 

“Delivering broadcast-grade security and monetisation at CDN-scale for global audiences, all while maintaining ultra-low live latency, is a major moment for the industry.” said Domenic Romeo, Layercake’s Co-founder and CTO. “By encrypting once and passing protected content through the edge without exposing secrets, the end-to-end pipeline is extremely efficient, secure and cost-effective. It opens up massive commercial opportunities that were previously off-limits for real-time streaming.” 

Availability 

The production DRM framework capabilities are available immediately across the integrated Ceeblue and Streamcake deployment options. Customers can deploy the unified solution across major CDNs, including Akamai, Orange CDN, Fastly, and many more. 

See Live Demos at IBC 2026 in Amsterdam 

Industry professionals attending the IBC Show (September 11–14, 2026 at the RAI in Amsterdam) can experience live demonstrations of studio-grade DRM and WebRTS orchestration across standard CDNs. Demonstrations will be hosted at both: 

Ceeblue Stand: Hall 5, Stand 5.C43 

LayerCake Partner Pod on the Grass Valley Stand: Hall 9, Stand 9.A01 

To schedule an IBC 2026 meeting or request a platform demonstration, Contact Ceeblue or Layercake. 

https://ceeblue.net/contact-us/ 

https://layercake.cloud/contact/ 

About Ceeblue 

Ceeblue is a pioneer in ultra-low-latency video streaming technology at scale. Its revolutionary open-source WebRTS framework, recently voted Streaming Media Europe’s Streaming Innovation of the Year, enables sub-second, broadcast-grade interactive video delivery globally over standard CDNs. Built to support multi-protocol ingest, advanced SSAI, and studio-grade DRM, Ceeblue enables large streaming platforms and OTT broadcasters to connect with millions of concurrent viewers in the moment.  For more information, visit www.ceeblue.net. 

About Layercake 

Layercake is a pioneer in digital, media and live. The company provides automation and orchestration solutions for media production and distribution through its flagship platform, Streamcake. Streamcake enables broadcasters, sports organisations, and enterprises to streamline complex workflows, automate infrastructure deployment, and scale content delivery across platforms. 

Streamcake supports customers across sports, broadcast and media, while integrating with an extensive ecosystem of leading technology providers including Grass Valley, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, AWS, Bitmovin, Ceeblue and Ant Media. 

With a proven approach to operational consulting and implementation, Layercake empowers organisations to unlock their digital potential and transform how they operate. 

For more information, visit www.layercake.cloud. 

Media Contacts 

Ceeblue PR Contact: 

Name: Josh Bergen 

Title: Business Operations Coordinator 

Email: [email protected] 

Phone: +34 617 507 983 

Layercake PR Contact: 

Name: Leanne O’Donovan 

Title: Head of Marketing & Customer Engagement 

Email: [email protected] 

Phone: +61 414 332 678