---
title: Zixi Transport Stream Protocol
slug: zixi-broadcaster-zec-current-version/zixi-transport-stream-protocol
docTags: 
createdAt: 2025-04-17T16:39:07.278Z
---

Zixi’s transport stream protocol is a content and network-aware protocol that dynamically adjusts to varying network conditions and employs error correction techniques for error-free video streaming over IP. With minimum overhead to physical bandwidth, this dynamic mechanism provides low end-to-end latency, removes jitter, recovers and re-orders packets, smooths video delivery, and regenerates video to its original form, all in real-time.

The Zixi protocol delivers outstanding performance (at low predictable latency), superior reliability (no packet loss), and broadcast-grade video quality (SD, HD, and UHD) with no tradeoffs to delay, resolution, or stutter. 

Streaming from one Zixi-enabled device/server to another Zixi-enabled device/server protects the stream from quality degradations along the path. It enables the streaming of high-quality video over any distance, while overcoming the varying network conditions of the public Internet, where the amount of network errors, packet loss, jitter, and out-of-order packets fluctuate "every second".

The Zixi transport stream protocol can also be deployed on part of the path. For example, from a ZEC to a Zixi Broadcaster (Zixi protected path) and on to the end user through UDP or RTMP. In this case, the path that has challenging conditions (e.g., long distance or unstable wireless conditions) will be protected by the Zixi protocol and then delivered to the end-user on a standard UDP or RTMP protocol.

Zixi’s transport stream technology includes the following features for ultimate quality and security:

- Network sensing
- Dynamic de-jitter
- MPEG-specific optimizations
- Z-ARQ error recovery
- Z-FEC - Dynamic content-aware forward error correction
- Active multi-path error recovery
- Adaptive bitrate over UDP, unicast or multicast
- Rate control and congestion avoidance
- 256-bit AES transport encryption

## Supported Protocols

### Input

- Zixi protected transport (Push and Pull)
- MPEG-TS over UDP and/or RTP with SMPTE-2022 
- RTMP pull from CDNs and/or other sources
- RTMP push
- RTMPS
- RTSP input
- RIST (TR-06-1)
- NDI
- Transport stream files from local file system
- SRT (configured via Zen Master or Zixi API)
- HLS
- WebRTC

### Output

- Zixi protected transport (Push and Pull)
- MPEG-TS over UDP and/or RTP with SMPTE-2022
- RTMP and RTMPS push to CDNs and/or other media servers;
- Apple HTTP Live Streaming (HLS)
- MPEG-DASH (DASH264 profile)
- NDI
- Transport stream files to local file system
- Re-multiplex output streams to strict CBR for extensive compatibility with Integrated Receiver- Decoders (IRDs)
- SRT (configured via Zen Master or Zixi API)