BBC TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATE STREAMING MEDIA

FOLLOWING their acquisition of one of the most extensive purpose built streaming operations in the world, BBC Technology have now fully integrated this streaming media business into their product portfolio.
BBC Technology offers streaming media in both Windows Media and Real formats to ensure maximum 'reach' of content to the end users and content are uploaded using BBC Technology's unique web based content management system. Through this self serve 'Content Manager' customers receive extensive monthly reporting, giving details of audience reach, location, player community, and bandwidth range. Already customers including BBC Worldwide are finding the service easy to use and adapt to their particular needs.
Content is sent via BBC Technology's Broadcast Network Control System to a PC on the stand for encoding. The encoded content is then uploaded via Content Manager to a storage area network (SAN) situated at BBC Technology's streaming media broadcast operation centre in the UK, where it is held for streaming. Viewers can see the content ‘live’ on the stand by clicking onto a URL, automatically created by Content Manager.
In reality, the same process is used. Customers' content is uploaded quickly and easily using Content Manager, which is accessed via a secure link over the web. This enables customers to manage their content remotely and assign business rules to it - e.g. geographic targeting; secure registration, subscription or notification; secure authentication and time restrictions, such as limiting access until a certain date/time or setting an expiry date.
For live events content is encoded at source and sent by satellite to the Streaming Media Services broadcast operations centre, where the streaming team can remotely control antenna at BBC Technology's satellite farm to pick up the relevant signal. Content can also be uploaded by ISDN, FTP or tape and clients embed the automatically generated URL into their website so that users can click through to view the content at the appropriate time. (CD)