NBC jumping through hoops to stream Olympic coverage online
To one-up the coverage of the Olympics in recent years, NBC has decided to take it seriously this time. The company has setup an elaborate plan to stream every second of the 2008 Olympics back to the U.S via the internet. With the aid of Limelight Networks, a content delivery network, the live streams will be pumped to various ISPs via some 1000 servers straight to the end-users.
It all starts with high-definition video feeds that are delivered over fiber-optic cables to the “International Broadcast Center” that’s been set up in Beijing, according to CNet. From there, encoders and Windows Media servers get the video into an Internet-ready format, which is then sent via satellite to NBC’s headquarters in New York. At this point, NBC adds a one-minute delay, which allows it’s network of live bloggers to write their text and have the video and commentary synchronized before going forward. Finally, the feeds are delivered to Limelight Networks to carry out the final distribution to the viewers.
In the beginning, NBC tossed around the idea of using Adobe’s Flash to deliver the online video, but was later persuaded by Microsoft that its Silverlight Technology would be a better choice. Silverlight will enable viewers to site a virtual “control room” of sorts that will let the viewer choose any feed of any specific game they choose to watch, including watching multiple streams at once.
To monetize the live coverage, and to be sure and not interrupt any part of it with commercials, NBC and Microsoft have teamed to deliver display ads during low points in the action, or “dead times” as they call it. Smart thinking, as the internet should never be bombarded with commercials like TV, which would turn-off many internet-viewers. Interestingly enough, to make all this happen, NBC has turned stage 8H, which is the home of Saturday Night Live, into a full fledge ad-hoc data center which turns out to be the backbone of the effort.
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August 3rd, 2008
This will be really an amazing thing to watch, a true test of a design based on Microsoft Technologies. There are so many factors at play, I would be loosing some sleep about now if I was the Architect of this design though. One thing I think would be good to hear about is not the Olympic coverage working, though that is the ultimate test. The interesting thing to me will be to see how well other customers of companies like Limelight do while all this attention is given to the Olympics. If possible to poll these customers during the coverage time, it would be good to know if they were impacted as part of this very visible event.