Forbidden Technologies, the developer of the cloud video platform FORscene, has entered the sports market following deals with YouTube and NBC to help cover the Olympics.
NBC will be using FORscene to encode the video in the cloud and allow its staff in London and the US to do frame-accurate edits of proxy video remotely (from their mobile phones if need be).
The application can then automatically conform the clips or highlights in full HD and transcode H.264 versions for delivery to YouTube for use on its homepage and to YouTube players embedded in the NBCOlympics.com site.
“FORscene’s scaleability and ability to edit content as it arrives in realtime are well suited to sport,” said Stephen Streater, CEO, Forbidden Technologies.
The deal will help reduce NBC’s costs, partly through a reduction in the numbers of staff it needs to bring to London but also through YouTube taking care of streaming to viewers. It will also help add another revenue stream from any viewers it gains from the Google-owned video site.
Generally, where FORscene has been used before for broadcast it has usually been for rough-cut edits, which are finished on Avid or Final Cut Pro, but it is increasingly being used to produce finished material, as here. However, it hasn’t been used for sport before.
“Our first sports trial is with the world’s biggest sports event, the world’s largest sports rights holder, and the world’s biggest internet video provider,” said Streater (pictured), although he’s confident that the cloud can easily handle it.
“We have had more than two million hours of professional content through our site, which is more than anyone else,” he claimed. Indeed, just one of the broadcast productions it is currently being used for will have about 8,000 hours of material, at least 2,000 more than the Olympics will generate.
By David Fox
