UK broadcaster Channel 4 has partnered with over-the-top video technology firm Simplestream for its online coverage of Parasport and the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.
London-headquartered Simplestream has built an accessible video platform and responsive website for Channel 4 that is designed to handle multiple live concurrent streams and on-demand video.
The website is now live with video-on-demand assets and will start to air live events from this month, starting with the World Para Swimming Championships on September 9th ahead of next summer’s Paralympic Games.
Built on top of Simplestream’s Sport Video Platform, the offering will be able to handle up to 16 concurrent live streams and adaptive bitrate encoding for up to 10 profiles.
“The time difference between some of the Parasport and Paralympic events in Tokyo 2020 and the UK means that our digital offering is more important than ever for our coverage,” said Pete Andrews, Channel 4 Head of Sport.
“Basing our Parasport online video offering on the tried and tested, low latency, accessible Simplestream Sport Video Platform solution meant that we could work with Simplestream to spend more time and energy on editorial features that make our offering better.”
The website is integrated with Channel 4’s Freewheel and Adobe Analytics platforms, includes DRM support for FairPlay, Marlin, PlayReady and Widevine, and content is automatically optimised for different device types.
Simplestream Chief Commercial Officer, Dan Finch, said: “Four years ago, a video platform of this scale and complexity would probably have been handled as a bespoke engineering project.
“The power of the cloud and our modular, white-label approach to building video platforms means that we can build ambitious live and VOD video projects for major broadcasters such as Channel 4 at a fraction of the time and cost, with all the technical and operational support and back up expected around such high interest sporting events.”
