Video Processing Perspectives

The 2012 Olympics in London are set to be the biggest media event in history, and Elemental is keen to be in the thick of it. As the first truly “digital Olympics,” we can’t wait to see this summer’s games take video streaming coverage to the next level. 

Let’s take a look back at some streaming statistics from the 2008 summer games in Beijing and 2010 winter games in Vancouver:

• In 2008, NBCOlympics.com served 75.5 million streams during the games, totaling 9.9 million hours of online video coverage.
• The BBC served over 40 million streams which totaled 6.5 million hours of coverage the same year, including 200,000 concurrent streaming viewers.
• In 2010, NBC Olympics Mobile tallied 82 million page views and 1.9 million mobile video streams. This growth occurred even though the winter Olympics are often not as popular on a global basis as the summer games.
• Akamai delivered more than 5,000 hours of live and on-demand video over the 17 days of the winter games, totaling more than 12 petabytes of data across its Olympics customers. At the peak, it served more than 30 concurrent live-streaming events.

While these are impressive numbers, it is 2012 that grabs the title of the first truly digital Olympics. Clearly, over the course of little more than a fortnight, we’re going to see statistics that blow these prior numbers away.

But why will more viewers take in the games via streaming? A big reason is because of the unprecedented scope of streaming access. NBC, for example, announced in September that it will offer live coverage of all events, making this the first time viewers in the United States will have the chance to view any Olympic event as it happens. In the past, the network delayed popular Olympic events for primetime viewing, a policy that received a less-than-favorable response.

As broadcasters all over the world depart from these “primetime plans,” it brings up another issue: live coverage of every event means that viewers, no longer limited to the primetime timeslot, may not be home with the telly to view their favorite event. Broadcasters have responded by planning to stream to a wide array of connected devices, including set-top boxes, PCs, tablets and mobile devices, giving consumers access to the Olympics in ways never before possible.

Without providing specifics as to how many major broadcasters will be leveraging Elemental for the 2012 Olympics, we would just like to remind Mr. Phelps that no record is safe. One thing is certain, however: live and on-demand video streaming powered by Elemental will be seen far and wide.

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