Elemental on the Road this Fall

IBC 2012Elemental is visiting four continents in the next thirty days, so the world has a great chance to see us this fall. Connect with Elemental at an upcoming industry event if you missed IBC last month or haven’t visited with us lately. In the next few months, the Elemental team brings hands-on demonstrations of its solutions to cities all over the world, including our newest products, Elemental Stream and Elemental Cloud. Elemental executives are also speaking on panels to the latest in multiscreen video streaming in Hong Kong, Los Angeles, New York and London. Have you made an appointment to see us?

Shows are worth the trip. Since most video workflows have at least one unique feature, attendees can save time by asking Elemental representatives questions about streaming media to smart phones, tablets and PCs and get fast answers. At a trade show, our team can talk through your specific challenges and demonstrate the advantages of video processing solutions from Elemental. We have deep experience helping companies like HBO, Comcast and the BBC deploy video infrastructure to deliver premium content and live events to new media platforms quickly and reliably. Visit us at one the shows listed below to see how we can support your application.

Dates Show Location
Oct 10-12 Akamai Edge Las Vegas
Oct 15-18 Sportel Monaco Monaco
Oct. 17-19 SCTE Cable-Tec Expo Orlando, FL
Oct. 25-26 TelcoTV Las Vegas, NV
Oct. 29-Nov. 1 CASBAA Hong Kong
Oct. 30-31 Streaming Media West Los Angeles, CA
Nov. 5-8 OTTtv World Summit London, UK
Nov. 14-15 CCW Expo New York, NY
Nov 14-16 Inter BEE Tokyo, Japan

 

Check out our events page for booth numbers and more detailed information about our upcoming shows. If you don't have the opportunity to visit Elemental this fall, learn more online about our recent product rolloutscustomer announcements and how we helped broadcasters stream the Olympics.

Thank you, gracias, merci, 谢谢 and ありがとう. We look forward to seeing you on the road!

Elemental Streams the Olympic Games with Broadcasters Worldwide

Today Elemental proudly announced it is serving up Olympic streams for some of the most recognizable names in broadcast and media entertainment. The BBC in the UK, Terra in Latin America, Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium and Eurosport are among the broadcasters using Elemental gear to create and distribute video of the 2012 Summer Games. A record number of viewers around the globe will experience the first truly digital Olympics by accessing live and VOD content on PCs, laptops, tablets, mobile phones and other smart devices.

Elemental Olympics Coverage MapThe BBC plans to stream 2,500 hours of the Olympic Games using Elemental® Live and to provide its audience with up to 24 alternative live HD streams from which to choose. The BBC will also use Elemental Live to encode and archive events that can be easily transitioned into video on-demand (VOD) assets for streaming catch-up TV to viewers in the UK. Similarly, Eurosport and Terra plan full spectrum coverage of the 17-day event. CTV in Canada plans to distribute up to 15 streams of live coverage daily and to supply ample on-demand and highlight packages on a variety of connected platforms. Transnational streams, as well as video destined for audiences in the US and in Japan, will also run through Elemental gear.

Elemental partner NVIDIA points out that when all is said and done, Elemental expects up to a billion viewers of its streaming content during the Games. In addition to thousands of hours of live coverage, Elemental will encode and archive video for on-demand highlights and other assets for time-shifted viewing. "These numbers spell complexity. They involve a wide variety of use cases, video codecs, resolutions, screen sizes, and other specifications. As the engines powering Elemental’s streaming service, NVIDIA GPUs will help transform that complexity into a great viewing experience," writes Michael Steele, who manages strategic alliances at NVIDIA.

The responsibility for the multiscreen delivery of an event like the Olympics is not the work of a single company, a single broadcaster or a single technology. But it can be argued that Elemental is behind more of the streams, to more of the people, and more target devices than any other encoding supplier. To learn more about the different ways broadcasters are planning to stream Olympic content, as well as Elemental's role in bringing the Olympics to a screen near you, check out the project brief available on the Elemental website.

Elemental is Going for Gold

Olympic torch lightingThe 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.

If you’re planning to attend NAB next week, be sure and make time to visit Elemental in booth SU10012 on the show floor and see our video processing solutions at work. If you’d like to schedule time with an Elemental representative, click here to make an appointment. We’d be well chuffed to see you at the show!

Extracurricular Activity: A Round-Up of Elemental’s Participation in Sports Worldwide

2011 has proven to be a sport-acular year for Elemental, as our gear is now found within several major sports leagues’ networks, at some of the world’s largest tournaments and competitions, and even inside athletic stadiums and venues. Helping companies deliver live video and highlights to fans via PCs, tablets or mobile devices is one of Elemental’s sweet spots, and we are excited about playing a significant role in this evolution. Let’s take a look at the ways Elemental is making an impact on the streaming sports world.

Sports logo board Elemental customers

Syndicate content