SysMedia To Provide Effortless Olympic Interactivity

As the Beijing Olympics head rapidly towards a broadcasting reality, with plans now being firmly put in place on a global basis, SysMedia has come to the rescue of broadcasters who want to add interactive services cost-effectively to their coverage.
IBC 2007 sees the launch of Gold 2008, which takes advantage of the content management and production engine’s high-level abilities in a price-flexible manner.
Broadcasters are now able to purchase a three-month licence for the globally-deployed technology and this will allow them to take advantage of a range of interactive features that will enhance any Olympic broadcast.
Gold 2008 will be supplied with content templates that can be customised to each broadcaster’s look and feel, cost-effectively, continuing their branding through interactive coverage.
The system provides multi-screen video selection allowing viewers to choose from multiple feeds as well as connection to external news feeds like PA or Reuters which will provide a huge range of up-to-date graphical information. For example, this could include the latest results (in-vision if desired) and medal tables, all reached quickly and simply by the viewer.
The system can be deployed over digital broadcast using any deployed middleware and also over mobile and IPTV systems where web servers are utilised for data dissemination. It can operate completely automatically once set up.
"By using Gold 2008, broadcasters and network operators are able to achieve a very low-cost entry into providing interactive services. It has long been proven that sports events attract a high usage of related interactive services and these Olympics are only likely to extend that. This system provides broadcasters with access to complex data handling technology at a highly competitive cost with ease of deployment also a design imperative," explains Kevin Lingley, Interactive Product Manager, SysMedia.
Longer term license upgrades are available that will allow users not just to re-skin applications but develop entirely new ones.
(SP)