From Musician to Media Maverick:
How Zapping Redefined Live Streaming in Latin America
Voices of Video with Ignacio “Nacho” Opazo, CTO of Zapping
What happens when a saxophone player decides to reinvent TV for half a million subscribers across Latin America? Meet Ignacio “Nacho” Opazo, CTO of Zapping, who went from writing code as a hobby to building one of the region’s most innovative live OTT platforms.
In this Voices of Video episode, Nacho shares how Zapping grew from its early days as El Telon into a multi-country service delivering 500+ live channels, why their swipe-to-watch interface was “TikTok before TikTok,” and how they pushed video quality standards across Chile, Brazil, Peru, and Ecuador.
He also unpacks Zapping’s journey from CPU to GPU to VPU-powered encoding - cutting costs, reducing power, and scaling to meet subscriber demand.
It’s a story of vision, scrappiness, and engineering grit that’s reshaping live TV in Latin America
Ignacio “Nacho” Opazo, CTO of Zapping Account Manager, Advantech North America
Ignacio “Nacho” Opazo is CTO & CPO of Zapping, Latin America’s fast-growing live OTT platform with more than 500,000 subscribers across Chile, Brazil, Peru, and Ecuador. A self-taught software developer and trained musician, Ignacio pioneered one of the region’s first streaming services, El Telón, before evolving it into Zapping. He has led the full-stack development of the platform - from encoders and apps to CDN - driving innovations like swipe-to-watch live TV and adopting VPUs to scale efficiently.
Mark Donnigan - Head of Strategic Marketing at NETINT Technologies
Mark Donnigan is the Head of Strategic Marketing at NETINT Technologies, where his extensive experience and innovative approach have significantly contributed to the company's growth and industry standing. With a background that combines deep technical understanding and strategic marketing expertise, Mark has been instrumental in positioning NETINT as a leader in ASIC Video Processing Units (VPUs) for ultra-high density video encoding and streaming. His work at NETINT involves not just promoting the brand and its products but also shaping the future direction of the video streaming and encoding market.