The Story behind How Silverlight helped power the NBC 2010 Winter Olympics Experience

Ever wonder exactly how Silverlight and IIS Streaming Media Services were used to provide online video monetization and highlight segments for the 2010 Winter Olympics?  Want to re-create the experience for your next big extravaganza? 

The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver marked the sixth of seven consecutive Olympic broadcasts by NBC Universal and presented the opportunity to build on the success of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.  NBC teamed with premier technology vendors, led by Microsoft, to cover 4,485 hours of events in HD via Internet Information Services (IIS) Smooth Streaming to a video player based on Microsoft Silverlight. In addition to pleasing sports fans, the programming offered an audience of more than 15.8 million unique visitors to the many advertising partners of NBC. The exceptional capability of IIS Smooth Streaming and Silverlight technologies gave technology vendors the tools they needed to develop a way to deliver midstream ads while providing an engaging experience for Olympics enthusiasts.

Now the story behind the story has been published at http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/900/nbc-online-video-monetization-and-highlights-creation-for-the-2010-winter-olympics The article describes the general IT architecture and tools used to support the three broadcasters (NBC, CTV, NRK), and offers specific details about how NBC inserted midstream ads in both the live video and video-on-demand (VOD) scenarios and created and delivered highlight clips.

Also be sure to check-out the case study at: http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?casestudyid=4000007258

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