Globecast is hailing 2017 as a year of ‘streaming successes’ after completing a range of projects including work on the Ladies European Tour (LET), The British GT Championship, Equestrian Endurance and Star Sixes football.
The company began working with LET TV production partner U.COM Media in 2016, supplying the satellite capacity covering the distribution of each event, which was then downlinked in London. From there, the content was transcoded and streamed live on YouTube. In tandem, the live stream was delivered to a cloud-based editing platform, where the content was clipped and repackaged for distribution on social networking.
Liz McParland, commercial director, contribution, Globecast, said: “Our customers want a broadcast-like, HD-quality experience for their streaming viewers. It makes a lot of sense to customers to take advantage of multiple services at the same time from us.
“If we’re already processing their content, it’s really straightforward for us to then transcode it for live streaming and prepare it for file transfer. Of course, with some customers we also provide complete production services.”
Star Sixes, (where celebrated former football players took part in a tournament at the O2 Arena in London) and the British GT Championship benefitted from the use of similar Globecast services: satellite uplink onsite, satellite capacity, downlinking at its London facility, transcoding of live streams and then distribution of that stream to either YouTube, Facebook or to dedicated VoD players on their websites.
McParland added: “It’s clear the content distribution market has changed, particularly – though not exclusively – with sports. Streaming is such a valuable way to reach audiences for niche content, potentially then driving linear TV distribution, though in its own right streaming can achieve big audiences.
“Even with tier 1 content, streaming is very powerful as a promotional tool, creating a buzz and driving interest. The key thing is providing a quality audience experience. That is what we do, all under one roof.”
