While NBC and Microsoft have been getting most of the publicity for the unprecedented amount of streaming video of the Beijing Olympics, Digital Rapids has played a crucial role in encoding and delivering the thousands of hours of sports coverage enjoyed by millions around the world.

Mike Nann, director of communications, says there were plenty of obstacles to be overcome.

"Due to the limited amount of space each media outlet gets in the International Broadcast Center at the Games, and NBC's ambitious plan for streaming video, we had to tailor a solution in a scenario that was less than optimal," Nann said.

Nann mentioned myriad restrictions on the infrastructure, including heat generation, physical space for racks and broadband access.

"Each system had to serve two channels of video in three different compression levels, as well, for a total of 6 VC-1 streams per system" Nann said. "Usually, we'd like to dedicate a system to each channel for optimal quality and streaming speed, but we had to operate within the parameters."

Nann said a feature of Microsoft's VC-1 SDK called dynamic complexity enabled the Digital Rapids servers to optimize each channel without overloading the CPUs, because it automatically would balance any overhead while also capping streams that threatened to monopolize the feed and slow down the server. Nunn said there have not been any major issues with the video, so far.

"We had a lot of lead time to do QA analysis and problemshoot," Nann said. "I think it has been a great experience over all, and I think it is a great experience for web video." 

For more:
- Digital Rapids press release [1] on supporting Beijing Olympic video

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