IBC, AMSTERDAM – Verizon Digital Media Services today announced the availability of its Live Streaming Solution, designed to remove the complexity and high costs for broadcasters, venues and event producers when streaming live content at scale. The launch of the Live Streaming Solution coincides with key enhancements to the Verizon Digital Media Services platform, including workflow enhancements in the Uplynk Video Streaming service, enhanced monitoring tools in Network Operations Centers in Los Angeles, California and Ashburn, Virginia, and the availability of a managed services team for day-of-show support.

“Many of the leading media and entertainment brands trust us to deliver hundreds of simultaneous, high-profile, live events on any given day,” said Ralf Jacob, president of Verizon Digital Media Services. “The key learnings derived from years of experience with the largest live streaming events are driving the improvements and offerings that we’re announcing today.”

Key features of the new Live Streaming Solution include:

• A cloud-based scheduler and an operator dashboard to provision encoders, manage live feeds, insert ad breaks and push slates in the Uplynk Video Streaming service.
• Publishing a single live-stream URL that transitions seamlessly between pre-event, live and post-event statuses to greatly simplify the syndication of content to internal or third-party content management systems and apps.
• Automatic and instant creation of a VOD asset upon completion of the live event, without the need for re-encoding, which removes additional costs and delays.
• Real-time health monitoring and failover support for the Uplynk Video Streaming service's Slicer application running onsite at the venue or at the point of origination.
• Continued expansion of the Edgecast Content Delivery Network (CDN) with global reach, including recently announced points of presence (PoPs) in South America, India and Asia.
• End-to-end intelligence and insights, correlating viewing analytics with network performance.
• The ability to outsource day-of-show operations to the Verizon Digital Media Services live events operations staff.

“We offer a wide array of services for managing live events,” said Peter Gallagher, chief customer officer at Verizon Digital Media Services. “We have a full suite of self-service tools for customers that want to manage everything themselves, and for those customers with a large number of live events, we have an outsourced master control function that can interact directly with the venue.”

Already in use by major broadcaster customers, the Live Streaming Solution has powered thousands of live events this year ranging from small audiences to over a million concurrent viewers. Representatives from Verizon Digital Media Services will provide demonstrations of the Live Streaming Solution at the IBC convention in Amsterdam (Stand 14.C17) from Sept. 9 – 13. For more information on Verizon Digital Media Services’ platform, visit: https://www.verizondigitalmedia.com.