June 15, 2009 -- Sydney, Australia: Digital Rapids -- the leading provider of tools and solutions for bringing television, film and web content to wider audiences -- announced today that World Sport Group, Asia's leading sports marketing, event management and media company, has selected Digital Rapids encoding and management systems to enable live streaming of hundreds of high-profile sporting events each year.
World Sport Group produces almost 600 days of sports events and more than 1000 hours of live sports programming annually, across more than 30 countries. Headquartered in Singapore, World Sport Group holds the digital rights for the continent's leading club and national team football competitions, and sought a robust streaming solution that could be easily managed to handle their high volume of live events. Working with partner sport and entertainment specialist Perform Group and reseller Mediamatic Systems International Pte Ltd., World Sport Group selected Digital Rapids' StreamZ encoding systems and the Digital Rapids Broadcast Manager multi-encoder management software for their streaming operations.
Eight StreamZ systems encode source satellite feeds into web-viewable output formats, which are streamed live to content delivery network Akamai for live distribution to viewers. At the same time, highlight clips of these matches are produced in World Sport Group's post production facility, with StreamZ automatically transcoding the finished clips to web formats and delivering them via FTP. Digital Rapids Broadcast Manager provides centralized management and control of the StreamZ systems.
"Given the unforgiving nature of live coverage, it is essential for us that all the equipment is robust and reliable, and the Digital Rapids solutions have delivered on all counts," said James Leow, Head of Digital Media at World Sport Group. "With more than 300 football matches available annually via satellite, easy management of the streaming is also important, and Digital Rapids Broadcast Manager has provided exactly that."
"Consumers are increasingly choosing Internet TV as a primary platform for their sports viewing, with many sporting events unavailable through traditional media such as broadcast," said Nick Fitzgerald, VP, Asia Pacific for Digital Rapids. "The sheer number of these events makes easy management of streaming operations essential. The combination of StreamZ and Broadcast Manager delivers exceptional visual quality, reliability and streamlined management that make them perfect for multi-channel live streaming applications, and we're excited that World Sport Group has chosen our solutions to power their expansive streaming projects."
Digital Rapids' StreamZ encoding systems combine powerful hardware for video and audio capture and pre-processing with the intuitive and robust Stream software, delivering reliable, high-quality, multi-format media encoding and streaming for professional applications such as high-end Internet TV and IPTV. The Digital Rapids Broadcast Manager software provides enterprise-class management, control, monitoring and fault tolerance for multiple live streaming encoders, with features including scheduling, automated failover and alert notifications.
For more information about Digital Rapids, please visit www.digital-rapids.com.
About World Sport Group -- Headquartered in Singapore, World Sport Group is Asia's leading sports marketing, media and event management company, with a roster of golf, football and cricket events across the entire region. World Sport Group has been at the forefront of Asian sport since 1993, featuring almost 600 days of sports events and more than 1000-hours of live sports programming annually, across more than 30 countries in the region. The World Sport Group is staffed by more than 140 employees in offices in Beijing, Beirut, Delhi, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Singapore and Tokyo. www.worldsportgroup.com.
About Digital Rapids Corporation – Digital Rapids develops market-leading hardware and software solutions for transforming and delivering media, enabling the multi-platform experiences that are defining the future of digital video. Scaling from individual applications to enterprise and global operations, Digital Rapids systems span the critical points in today's complex media workflows. Recipient of two prestigious Frost & Sullivan awards in the World Video Encoders and Transcoders market, Digital Rapids combines innovative technology with proven expertise to help our customers maximize their productivity, quality, and the value of their content in the evolving digital media market. Digital Rapids Corporation (www.digital-rapids.com) is headquartered in Ontario, Canada with offices in the United States, the UK, Australia, Argentina and Hong Kong.
