On Thursday 10th May 2012 at 7pm (BST), the ‘Walking with the Wounded’ Everest team will take part in the world’s highest ever Whisky Tasting.

The broadcast will take place live from Everest Base Camp at 5364m, where the team will ‘nose’ and ‘taste’ a selection of Glenfiddich’s finest single malt reserves. They will be joined by an eminent panel of guests live from The London Stock Exchange.

Adventure specialists Captive Minds Communications, famed for their North Pole trip with Prince Harry have engaged online media expert StreamUK to provide the live stream and technical support after successfully live streaming Glenfiddich’s last innovative campaign, which involved online virtual whisky tasting that generated a huge number of participants throughout the globe.

Guests for the ‘World’s Highest Whisky Tasting’ will include Dr. Ian Davis (renowned adventure doctor), Jamie Milne (Whisky Expert), Ed Parker (Charity Founder) and Mark Thomson (Director of Dramatic Whisky). The 45 minute show will be streamed live on the Internet, on Telegraph.co.uk, on Absolute Radio’s website as well as a special Glenfiddich microsite.

Viewers tuning in will receive a introduction to Whisky Tasting, hear more from the Walking with the Wounded team on their Everest climb and, a lucky few, will be able to ask the team questions via Twitter using the hashtag #WWTWLive

StreamUK - Webcasting, Online Video, Digital Media Excellence

It was the second time in less than 6 months that StreamUK were called upon to stream Florence + the Machine live to internet users across the country. On the 3rd of April, StreamUK worked with music agency LoveLive who had joined forces with HP, planning the production of a free and interactive multi-camera live stream of an exclusive Florence + the Machine concert for the charity Teenage Cancer Trust. The show saw the artist performing at London’s Royal Albert Hall accompanied by a full symphony orchestra.

Broadcast live via YouTube, the event gave fans access to fantastic high quality video with a choice of four camera angles and a ‘Super HD Directors Cut Mix’, both features were enabled through a custom built interactive flash player built by StreamUK that also included technological advancements to enable seamless switching to prevent audio glitches.

Now celebrating its 11th year in streaming live music, StreamUK encoded content of multiple qualities to four separate streams and optimised the software to meet YouTube guidelines. The content delivery network provider Level3 also played a major part in ensuring that the content was delivered in the highest quality to over 30,000 online viewers.

Florence And The Machine is just the latest in a huge list of artists that have called on StreamUK to perform for their fans on the digital stage. To find out more about more about how StreamUK’s media platform has been used, please click here for the 2011 StreamMP Review.

StreamUK - Webcasting, Online Video, Digital Media Excellence

StreamUK CEO Duncan Burbidge will be leading a seminar on the role StreamMP has played in improving fan engagement and enhancing social interaction for sports businesses worldwide. Burbidge will also use the opportunity to show how the Tribal Technology behind the platform adds real and measurable value to Football Clubs’ online video.

Ryan Mcknight, the Editor of FC BUSINESS magazine, will host the first part of the seminar, interviewing Duncan Burbidge, Paul Rogers (Head of Content at Liverpool FC) and Matthew Quinn (Liverpool FC Digital Systems Cooridinator) about  Liverpool FC TV, an online football video subscription service that is as successful as any in the world.

Since its launch in January 2011, StreamMP has positioned itself as the leading online video platform for sports businesses. StreamMP has already become the go-to-solution for the British Association of Mixed Martial Arts, British Supercross and Williams F1.

StreamUK are also exhibiting at the Soccerex European Forum in Manchester. The seminar will take place at 2pm on the 29^th March at the Soccerex Euopean Forum in Manchester Central. To find out more about the event please go to http://www.soccerex.com. To read more about StreamUK’s working relationship with Liverpool FC please visit http://www.streamuk.com/2012/02/streamuk-expand-into-sports-market/.

StreamUK - Webcasting, Online Video, Digital Media Excellence

2012 has been a very busy year so far for StreamUK and live music. The online media specialist was instrumental in bringing some of the worlds first class acts to internet audiences in 2011, but this year looks to be even busier, as StreamUK fills its diary with a whole variety of live music events month by month.

StreamUK’s online video platform StreamMP was used last Saturday to stream up and coming urban act Maverick Sabre, supported by Ms Dynamite at The Roundhouse in Camden. The media platform which has been previously used by Florence & The Machine, Adele and McFly, looks to become event more popular in 2012, as music acts  look to online streaming to interact with their global growing fan bases.

StreamUK - Webcasting, Online Video, Digital Media Excellence

StreamUK, the company responsible for live streaming the 2012 World Book Day event released online audience figures today that make World Book Day the biggest European children’s webcast, as well as one of the most watched live streaming events aimed at children in the World.

Students watching the live stream at Scole Primary School, Norfolk.

The event that took place on the 1^st March was watched by over 750,000 primary and nursery school children all over the world, with a high number of schools arranging the stream to be broadcast to multiple classes and year groups.

Fiona Uebergang, a teacher at Scole Primary School in Norfolk scheduled the school day especially in anticipation for the webcast:

“We had children from years 3-6 watching the web broadcast to engage them with authors they love and inspire them to go and find out more about those authors and others to source and research books for the school, chosen by them”

“The broadcast made them really focus on what the World Book Day vouchers were for – and hearing the actual authors and seeing they are just normal people who happen to write, really inspired them!”

St Patrick’s National School in Ireland also used the online event to help engage its pupils with literature:

“All the authors held the children’s focus. We had three classes squeezed in (approx 90 pupils) and that added to the atmosphere, they were waving and answering the authors’ questions which was amusing in itself!” – Teacher, Wendy Morgan.

StreamUK built the microsite for the event and managed the registration system allowing tracking of all viewers accessing the online broadcast. The online video platform StreamMP was used to power the video and StreamUK technical support was made available to viewers worldwide.

StreamUK - Webcasting, Online Video, Digital Media Excellence

The online media specialist StreamUK is working with World Book Day to make the event accessible to schools and book fans all over the globe.

The event taking place at The South Bank Centre is named ‘The Biggest Book Show on Earth’, featuring Children’s Laureate Julia Donaldson, Axel Scheffler, David Melling, Emma Chichester Clark , Korky Paul and Lydia Monks who will be exploring their work with more than 300,000 online viewers.

StreamUK, nominated for ‘Best 2011 Webcast’ by Streaming Media Europe last year, is providing a full end-to-end service for the event from production, encoding and managing the live stream, to distributing the content to its interactive online video platform StreamMP, via the Level 3 content delivery network.

The use of StreamMP enables live question submissions that will encourage pupils and literature fans to interact with some of literature’s top and current authors. Naomi Clemence, a class teacher at Ruchill Autism Unit in Glasgow said; “This will give the children a wider understanding of the process of writing a book and raise their interest in the work of other authors, perhaps inspiring them to choose books they would not have otherwise chosen.”

The Biggest Book Show on Earth webcast hopes to be another form of interactive learning that increases engagement between young pupils and literature new and old.

To watch the online event live on the 1^st March you can register for free here, or simply visit www.worldbookday.streamuk.com to catch-up on demand.

StreamUK - Webcasting, Online Video, Digital Media Excellence

StreamUK  provided further solutions for live music last weekend when the online media specialist streamed the Reverb Festival live from The Roundhouse in Camden.

As the live streaming partner for The Roundhouse, StreamUK provided encoding and live streaming services for the contemporary classical festival which became the latest of many Roundhouse events that require StreamUK to bring live high quality content to mass internet audiences.

Using StreamUK’s online media platform StreamMP, and delivered by the content delivery network Level3, the Friday and Sunday shows of the 5 day festival were live streamed via The Roundhouse dedicated Reverb webpage, as well as an additional live feed which can be accessed on The Guardian website. StreamMP’s universal compatibility  also enabled it to integrate with The Guardians online advertising system.

Reverb is a five-day festival that celebrates the best of this new wave of performers, and in an Olympic year explores themes of love and truce. The revolutionary and ever-popular Night Shift and the award-winning Aurora Orchestra explore versions of the Romeo and Juliet story, Imogen Heap’s evocative a cappella film soundtrack is performed alongside rising star Ana Silvera’s exploration of love, war and mystery, Voices Now’s choral take-over celebrates a coming-together of choirs from across the nation as part of the BBC’s Music Nation, a Countdown Event for the London 2012 festival, the finale of the Cultural Olympiad, and the London Contemporary Orchestra join forces with Nonclassical and their rebellious classical club night.

In 2011 StreamUK were unrivalled for live streaming high quality content for high profile artists such as PJ Harvey, Adele, Florence & The Machine and McFly.

StreamUK - Webcasting, Online Video, Digital Media Excellence

Written by Adrian Pennington

Liverpool FC has seen its online video service prosper since working with StreamUK in mid-2011. Now the streaming media specialist aims to do the same for Europe’s top sports clubs.

With the kudos of working with Liverpool on one of the most successful football subscription services in the world, Stream UK plans to export its technology into Europe.

The London-based specialist is targeting sports clubs and sports business owners with an online video sports solution based on its StreamMP media management platform.

“The LFC experience shows that online video can be a significant offering for sports clubs,” says CEO Duncan Burbidge. “Sport is a driver for online video because clubs own lots of high quality content that people are willing to pay for. It makes it much easier to provide a premium service for owners who can see a ROI on the quality they are serving their customers.”

Although StreamUK had existing sports clients it was its work with Liverpool FC — in the premier league of global football brands — that convinced Burbidge to strategically reposition StreamMP as a sports online video platform.

In a blind test with CDN partner Level3, and against the incumbent CDN, StreamUK were selected by the club last August to power the video behind LFCTVonline.

Liverpool’s previous video streaming service used Flash player with WMP downloads. Its content then and now includes exclusive interviews, match highlights, press conferences, live matchday audio commentary, training ground footage, and reserve team games.

“For the rebuild in 2011, we were looking for increased penetration, better encoding quality, delivery to multiple platforms, and better analytics,” explains Michael Crowder, systems and development manager at LFC. “Also key was the vastly improved search which comes from having the video integrated with the web CMS — allowing a single set of metadata.”

“We built the site, Stream UK built the player. Key improvements for fans have been iOS streaming and adaptive streaming.”

It is believed to be the most successful online video subs service of any football club in the world.

Crowder says, “I can’t give exact numbers but we are confident in terms of subscriber numbers for a pure online video service ours is the most popular. The site itself recently broke (internal) records with almost 7 million unique users in January. Site traffic continues to grow and video is and will continue to be a key part of this.”

Given LFC’s huge overseas fanbase, the October 2011 $3 billion acquisition by Level3 of Global Crossing with its networking services in Asia and Latin America, is a likely contributing factor.

Adds Burbidge, “Sports clubs desire fan engagement but they don’t just want to bombard fans with anything and everything. It’s about carefully selecting the right technology and features so that fans can contribute their expertise. There is a tremendous wealth of expertise among the fan community and if you can bring that to video then you will grow engagement naturally.”

He continues, “We’re working with LFC to give an unrivalled video experience. It’s very much a two-way process and it’s forever evolving.”

Alongside the media management platform SteamMP, the focus of StreamUK’s sports solution is TRIBAL, an acronym for a suite of technologies targeted at growing online fan communities.

Breaking that down: ‘T’ is for Twitter, or as Burbidge explains, “a focus on key social media tools” and the ability to post relevant tweets. “‘R’ is for real-time sharing. Key moments can be shared on social networks, with the most popular shares becoming community markers. You can use the expertise of those who have viewed to index the video for those that haven’t.

“Next is intelligent delivery. Whatever the user’s network, the technology should adapt to give them the best performance. It should be integrated into the web CMS and integrated with video workflow.

“Branding means we don’t do cookie cutter sites. We work hard to make the experience fully branded in a way fans can respond to. Branded can be the background image to the player, the sound of the crowd as it loads, the colours used, or something as simple as the font.

“Accurate analytics and reposts should tell the client what is working and what is not from everywhere the content is viewed.

“There is no magic,” he says. “Just good solid technology combining metadata management with appropriate branding and social media tools targeted to fans.”

The first fruit of this process is a feature allowing users to time-capture significant moments within live and on-demand video and post time-specific content via Twitter or Facebook. It has been used in coverage of several running events in Spain, including Madrid’s BBVA benefit race, a marathon in which 12,000 runners were able to capture the moment they crossed the finish line and find that moment on-demand when watching it back online.

Next up are improvements to social media integration for which StreamUK has will use stats obtained from the Google Analytics plug-in. “Phase 2 of the sharing capability will allow popular shares to be placed on to the client player for a social indexing of games,” Burbidge explains. PVR functionality is also being lined up for release in 2012.

Digital media powerhouse Perform works with a number of English Premier League clubs and powers the online video provision of The Football League which represents the online video interests of 86 clubs in lower divisions, but StreamUK believes its individual brand customisation and ability to integrate video into the client website gives it an edge.

“We are talking with the bigger clubs in Spain and Italy,” reveals Burbidge. “Most European clubs have an immature web video offering compared to the EPL and we can offer them a good return on investment.”

Recent signatories to the platform include the Italian superbike agency and Enda Sports and Media, in which the Turkish production company has produced a series of live football games delivered online with the cost met by providing betting opportunities to viewers.

“The possibility of replacing ads with betting opportunities opens a whole range of possibilities for content owners. It puts the question to advertisers: can you beat the CPM available?” said Burbidge. “The potential is obvious and we have not even utilised our targeting capabilities yet.”

Those capabilities will be enhanced with the integration of Adswizz’s IP targeted online media advertising, the result of a partnership announced in January, 2012.

“Adswizz allows ads to be targeted according to the fan profile,” says Burbidge who says that CPM rates using the service rise from 6 to over 20.

Adswizz, headquartered in Brussels has become a European leader in internet radio ad insertion, recently introducing a video ad server to offer cross-platform campaign support. It is IAB compliant to both VPAID and VAST standards. Its ad-replacement technology is integrated into the U.S. network of streaming media giant Liquid Compass.

“Working with StreamUK is a big opportunity for us because we think our technology and our service can provide an additional way for their customer to monetise their stream,” says Adwizz’s Jean-Claude Morel. “Using our technology companies like a football club can monetise the audience they have on the web by selling targeted ads.”

He adds: “It is a very interesting approach to work with a streamer since they own relationship with customers and the streamer can provide our solution as an additional service. We have a lot of expectation for this partnership.”

Burbidge, a former management consultant, and CTO Joe Bray began the business in 2001 with a content management system which morphed into a video management system around 2006, with all the work done in house.

“Towards the end of 2009 we started to see, with the increased rate of change in the video market, that we were not able to keep pace with developing technology,” he says. “We looked around for a solution, thought of partnering with Brightcove or Ooyala, before we found Kaltura’s open source software. We got to know the code and to work with the community and it allowed us to keep pace with video developments while being able to tweak code for our own purpose.”

They broke the platform into layers of data warehousing, database and transcodes and began to migrate clients over to the system, renamed StreamMP and delivered over Level3.

“We’ve since made several enhancements to the Kaltura codebase including the fast switching of the player; the inclusion of Rohzet Carbon in the transcoding backend so you can upload a piece of content once and have it transcoded into HTML5 or tablet formats, and so on. We’ve allowed users to delve much more deeply into stats and have completely reworked the data warehousing part of the product. We’ve also brought in new players to make the site more ‘sticky’, for example by having related clips built into it and a more sophisticated use of tagging.

“The whole premise is aimed at increasing the amount of video that users watch. At the end of the day we get money from data being delivered, so the development of that functionality is very much in our interest.”

In a competitive market, Burbidge believes StreamUK can distinguish itself from opposition like Brightcove and Ooyala.

“We think we’re best at transcoding quality and at delivering quality, but our single biggest advantage is our responsiveness,” he says. “Because we are U.K.-based, if you have a technical question you don’t have to wait until 4PM to get a sensible answer.

“We can also develop features according to your needs. Brightcove and Ooyala are great companies but they are huge companies so if you have a need for a feature you are much more likely to be listened to by us. We have 40 people in Camden, growing organically and we aren’t up against VC pressure so if you need a feature and it makes sense then we will develop it.”

Already present in Spain and Italy, StreamUK plans new offices in Germany and France and is seeking integration with manufacturers of encoding devices (Newtek’s Tricaster is one) as well as partnerships with broadcasters and satellite uplink providers.

The U.S. is not considered a target because, says Burbidge, “Competition in the U.S. is too intense. Our technical support team in Europe and our ability to develop quickly according to local market needs are key for us.”

Other clients include the BBC and newspaper group The Guardian, which both make use of Stream Crowdsourcer to manage the ingest, transcode, and curation of video, and Yahoo, which has deployed Stream Connect for live webcasts across Europe.

The expansion of IP-delivered content to connected TVs will also fuel the company’s growth. It is on the advisory board of internet TV platform YouView, works with Connect-TV which delivers IPTV to digital terrestrial service Freeview, and is under NDA with Samsung.

StreamUK - Webcasting, Online Video, Digital Media Excellence

StreamUK has developed its Tribal Technology to give sports fans what they need from online video. TRIBAL is the acronym behind a suite of technolgies that are targetted at growing online fan communities. It selects the best in available technology and combines it in an accessible package.

Within the TRIBAL package, there is:

Twitter. Focus on the key social media tool. Share a well formatted tweet with a thumbnail that takes the fan back to the main site.

Realtime sharing. Sports are about moments – and sharing them. Key moments can be shared on social networks, with the most popular shares becoming community markers. You can utilise the expertise of those who have viewed to index the video for those that haven’t.

Intelligent delivery and Integrated. The player technology gets the bitrate and format right for the user and the device. Automatically. From Sony PS3 on old ADSL to the iPhone 2 on excellent Wifi, the delivery of an excellent video experience should be a problem solved by technology – not the fan.   Integrated with your web CMS and integrated with your video workflow.

Branded
Your club is unique. The video experience should be too. And in a way that fans expect. Branded can be the background image to the player, the sound of the crowd as it loads, the colours used or something as simple as the font. It’s attention to detail that makes the experience resonate with the true fan. You’ve done it with your website, what about your video?

Accurate
Reports that tell you what is working and what is not. From everywhere the content is viewed.
Some things work, some things don’t. But if you can’t measure them then you’ll never know and not be able to improve. Our reports have been designed to capture the views, shares, comments and interactions that allow you to see the difference between genuine fan engagement and marketing fizzle.

Liverpool
Liverpool FC has seen its video offering prosper since starting working with StreamUK in mid-2011. One of Europe’s very best clubs. We’re working with them to give a video experience to match. It’s very much a two-way process and it’s forever evolving.

Click play below to see an animated version of the above

StreamUK - Webcasting, Online Video, Digital Media Excellence

StreamUK and Enda Sports and Media will be producing the first of a series of live sporting events this weekend when they broadcast the International Football Cup from Antalya, Turkey. The costs of delivering the event over the internet will be met by providing betting opportunities to viewers in place of the normal advertising or pay per view models.

The tournament includes top teams from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Kazakhstan, Azerbaidjhan, Uzbekistan and Albania and will be broadcast live to the club websites. Including:

http://www.trt.net.tr

http://www.chechensport.com

http://www.fc-terek.ru

http://www.metalist.ua

http://www.laola1.tv

The match will also be shown at http://www.streamuk.com/antalya.asp


Matches take place from Saturday 1500 GMT with the full schedule being:

Match 1 : 28 Jan. 2012 Terek Grozny (Russia) vs Ordabasy (Kazakhstan)
Service start: 12:45 GMT
Service ends: 15:00 GMT

Match 2 : 30 Jan. 2012 Methalist Kharkov (Ukraine) vs Phaktakor (Ozbekistan)
Service start: 12:45 GMT
Service ends: 15:00 GMT

Match 3 : 01 Feb. 2012 Terek Grozny (Russia) vs Rapid Bucharest (Romania)
Service start: 12:45 GMT
Service ends: 15:00 GMT

Match 4 (Final) : 03 Feb. 2012
Service start: 14:45 GMT
Service ends: 17:00 GMT

 


‘Exploring the possibility of replacing ads with betting opportunities opens a whole range of possibilities for content owners. It puts the question to advertisers: can you beat the CPM available? The potential is obvious and we have not even utilised our targeting capabilities yet.’ Said Duncan Burbidge, CEO of StreamUK.

‘This represents a fantastic new outlet for our high-quality content. It marks the start of what I expect to be an important partnership.’ Commented Metin Dalman, VP Media Operations for Enda Sports and Media.

StreamUK - Webcasting, Online Video, Digital Media Excellence