Signiant Helps Deliver On-Demand Video for NBC's Online Coverage of the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games

NEW YORK, March 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Signiant was selected to help deliver on-demand video to NBC during the network's online coverage of the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games, February 12-28. The announcement was made today by Perkins Miller, SVP, Digital Media, NBC Sports and Olympics and Dennis Albano, CEO, Signiant.

Signiant partnered with NBC to deliver coverage of the 2010 Winter Games to Microsoft Corp.'s facilities for viewing online in its Microsoft Silverlight player. As in the past, the Winter Games were available online for on-demand video viewing at nbcolympics.com. There were 14 different workflows behind the scenes that Signiant's software managed to ensure that the viewer experience was seamless as the games were streamed from Akamai's Content Distribution Network. Signiant's role was to manage the movement of content and automate processes on the back-end while Akamai delivered the content to consumers.

"Microsoft has worked with Signiant to deliver the highest quality online video for NBC's coverage of the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games," said Steve Sklepowich, director for Silverlight at Microsoft. "Signiant's support of back-end content was a key component in the delivery of Olympic footage to the Silverlight player."

"With hundreds of highlights and more than a thousand hours of coverage, we needed an efficient workflow to bring the Games to Olympic fans," said Miller. "Signiant has been a critical partner in making this process fast and error-free."

Dennis Albano of Signiant said, "Signiant and NBC have a long and successful partnership by working together on the implementation of an enterprise-wide content distribution management solution and by managing thousands of hours of NBC content for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. This project, in conjunction with other partners, highlights the way Signiant's open technology is able to handle complex workflows with enormous file traffic and time-sensitive content."

One of the main reasons that Signiant was selected as the content management solution for the Winter Games was because of the software's process automation capabilities. For example, after content is successfully delivered, a confirmation of receipt is automatically generated so that the URLs can be published. Because the volume of content was enormous, automation of workflows, job monitoring and delivery receipts were critical to deliver the Winter Games online successfully.

About NBC Olympics:

NBC has broadcast 11 Olympic Games, the most Olympics broadcast by any network. NBC surpassed ABC's 10 Olympics with the 2008 Beijing Games, the most watched television event in U.S. history with 215 million viewers.

The 2010 Vancouver Games mark the sixth of an unprecedented seven consecutive Olympic broadcasts by NBC Sports. The impressive streak began with the 2000 Sydney Games and continues through the 2012 London Games. NBC has broadcast eight of the last 10 Olympic Games, both summer and winter; Vancouver will mark the ninth out of the last 11.

About Signiant:

Founded in 2000, Signiant software is trusted as an essential solution to control the movement of content and automated processes, within and between organizations. The Signiant solution empowers global collaboration during the creation, processing and distribution of digital content – enabling customers to increase revenue, reduce costs and optimize existing asset investment.  Signiant is headquartered in Burlington, MA with development facilities in Ottawa, Canada and offices in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Munich and Singapore. Find out more at www.signiant.com, and read the Signiant blog at www.digitalmediagalaxy.com

SOURCE Signiant