Real-time event coverage company Livestream is launching a revamp of its platform that will add new features including multimedia integration, dynamic quality selection and often-requested DVR functionalities like replay. The integration means that users can enhance their coverage with real-time photos, text, and video clip updates, integrated into the HD live stream, which is powered by Akamai HDNet.
Viewers have become accustomed to the ability to pause and replay, and they notice that what’s common in their living rooms is rare in online live video streams, so they’ll welcome the new ability to interact with Livestream as though it’s a DVR. The Livestream player also now includes adaptive quality selection, automatically delivering up to 720p HD, based on the best that the viewer’s connection speed and computer power can handle.
Although still in public beta, the Volvo Ocean Race has signed on as Livestream’s first content partner, and coverage will begin Saturday (Oct. 29) from Alicante, Spain. New Livestream will give users raw access to photos, text, video, and audio clips sent directly to the site by the six racing yachts via satellite. The premier off-shore sailing race challenges crews to sail over 39,000 nautical miles of the world’s most treacherous seas ending in July 2012 in Galway, Ireland.
“The New Livestream is the only platform that allows us to share the full story of the Volvo Ocean Race with sailing fans, in real-time. That’s why we are so excited to be partnering with them,” Knut Frostad, chief executive officer of Volvo Ocean Race said. “Telling the Volvo Ocean Race story requires not only live streaming but also the way to connect the audience with other points of view in real-time including photos, videos, audio and text updates received by satellite, while they are at sea.”
In December 2011, Livestream will unveil the web and mobile producer tools to invited event owners and existing Livestream customers, enabling them to create their own channel on the platform. The company plans to move the platform out of beta in April 2012.
Max Haot, chief executive officer of Livestream, said the new service furthers the company’s mission to help event owners extend the coverage of their physical events to viewers online and on mobile devices. “With this new platform, the New Livestream is really redefining live event coverage,” he said. “We are confident that the new innovations … will benefit viewers and make it easier for event owners to identify the New Livestream as the only choice for their live programs.”
Livestream’s existing content partners include Facebook, The New York Times, ABC News, CBS News, Associated Press, HBO, AT&T, PepsiCo, Electronic Arts, Adidas, The Academy Awards, Warner Bros. Records and Paramount Pictures.
Related links:
http://new.livestream.com/volvooceanrace
Photo shows the boat called “The Black Pearl, the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” which competed in the 2005 Volvo Ocean Race as part of a marketing alliance between The Walt Disney Company and Volvo Ocean Race.
