Brightcove Leverages Cloud To Stream Sports Content Worldwide

The Sports Video Group is pleased to welcome Brightcove as a premier sponsor.  A global provider of cloud content services, the company offers a family of products used to publish and distribute the world’s professional digital media.

Brightcove’s products include Video Cloud, an online video platform, and Zencoder, a cloud-based encoding service and HTML5 video-player technology. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Boston, the company has more than 6,300 customers in more than 60 countries that rely on its cloud content services to build and operate media experiences across PCs, smartphones, tablets, and connected TVs.

“The video experience for sports is a truly unique and expansive concept,” says Albert Lai, CTO for media and broadcast solutions. “More than any other type, video depicting athletic endeavors is about far more than the activity taking place on the court or field. It’s about melding fact with storytelling, turning moments into memories, linking together the athlete, the team, the fan, the coach, and, most important, you.

“We’re always eager to help our customers convey the excitement and emotion of a sporting event through the power of video,” he continues. “Whether organizations are showing a live sporting event, sharing edited recaps on-demand, or enabling viewers to participate, Brightcove technology can ensure that audiences can experience those moments on any platform or device. We’re excited to be a part of SVG and to participate in important industry dialogue surrounding sports broadcasting.”

The Brightcove Video Cloud online video platform enables sports-video–content creators to publish, distribute, and monetize their online video programming. Advanced tools allow publishers to reach audiences on multiple platforms and devices with broadcast-quality streaming. With Video Cloud, along with the Zencoder cloud-based encoding and Live Cloud Transcoding solutions, publishers can distribute both live and on-demand sports-related content.

Manchester City Football Club, an English Premier League team, relies on online video, powered by Brightcove Video Cloud, not only to share team coverage with its global fan network but also to convey the emotion and excitement of the sport in a visual fashion.

In addition to Manchester City, Brightcove’s technology has been used in sports settings around the world, including Bassmaster, a bass-fishing organization that runs more than 30 tournaments a year, often in remote locations. With tremendous demand for access to tournament weigh-ins via Livestream, Bassmaster selected Zencoder Live Cloud Transcoding, which conducts all the necessary live encoding in the cloud, without the expense of a bulky hardware encoder.

Smartcom:tv, a company that produces live and on-demand events, also tapped the Zencoder Live Cloud Transcoding service to support live streaming of the annual event Finnmarksløpet, a 500-km and 1,000-km dog-sled race in the most northern part of Norway. Zencoder Live Cloud Transcoding allowed Smartcom:tv to deploy only one high-performing encoding unit to the streaming location and share six separate streams in the highest quality available through a single Internet connection. The race, which spans an entire week and comprises a series of grueling challenges in the bitter cold, was available live to viewers — for free.