Hammer Time Live and Online - 'U Can't Touch This'

Hosted on mtv.com.au/mchammer Tuesday November 10, 2009 at 1:30pm

Sydney, Australia, 10 November 2009 – Today 1.30PM AEST, in an Australian first, legendary 90s rapper and social media guru MC Hammer will feature in a live streaming event allowing viewers to watch and tweet simultaneously. Hosted by MTV Australia on mtv.com.au the live 'netcast' can be seen Tuesday November 10, 2009.at 1:30pm AEDT.

The live, online exclusive interview with MC Hammer will include an 'MTV Clippin' – a behind the scenes commentary on the video, with a live Twitter feed as part of the video stream.

The event will be filmed at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School and will be distributed via IIS Smooth Streaming Technology. It will be available on the MTV Australia website www.mtv.com.au/mchammer.

"We are thrilled to be hosting this live streaming event – an Australian first. This interview will bring together the best of social media and exclusive content for a truly engaging and interactive online viewing experience." Said Tom Armstrong, VP business development & digital, MTV Australia. " MC Hammer was a huge influence on MTV fans in the 1990s through his music and today is one of the leaders of the social media phenomenon so important in the lives of our audience."

For Microsoft this represents the first live IIS Smooth Streaming event in Australia. IIS Smooth Streaming technology means that the user experiences minimal buffering and fast start-up times because IIS Smooth Streaming adapts the quality of the video stream in real time, based on the user's changing bandwidth and central processing unit conditions.

To ensure a range of solutions and services were available for this event, Microsoft worked closely with partners across the digital media ecosystem including; Akamai Technologies, Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS), Inlet Technologies, Readify and Viocorp.

"With the growth of online video content we, in conjunction with multiple partners, are proud to be able to offer Australians a premier end-to-end streaming solution. Using IIS Smooth Streaming, content providers can deliver HD-quality, highly scalable and secure online video to their customers," said Chris Bright, web business development director, Microsoft Australia.

"With this event we are also using Silverlight to overlay Twitter feeds on top of the streamed video, so you can tweet with MC Hammer live during the interview," continued Chris.

Live IIS Smooth Streaming was officially launched last month by Microsoft Corp. and this is the first time that it is being used in Australia. Akamai Technologies will provide the Internet video via its Akamai HD for Microsoft Silverlight solution, which leverages Microsoft's IIS Smooth Streaming technology.

The live video streams are encoded with Inlet Technologies' Spinnaker, the first live streaming appliance to support both IIS Smooth Streaming and PlayReady DRM. This provides personal video recorder (PVR)-style access and navigation to live video streams, so you can join events in progress, then quickly jump to the beginning or rewind the highlights.

Online video digital media specialist, Viocorp, is responsible for the integration work at the back end of the project. Viocorp will ensure that the stream is delivered from the video mixing desk to the encoder and then out to the CDN via an origin server running Windows Server 2008 with IIS Media Services.

Local web consultancy firm, Readify, helped create some of the User Experience for the event in particular the Silverlight player.

The venue for the interview is provided by the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) at the Entertainment Quarter next toFox Studios in Sydney. Using this facility enables MTV to interview MC Hammer and push multiple bitrates of the interview including HD quality out live to the internet making full use of the studio's newly provisioned gigabit internet connection.

Quotes from involved partners:

"The demand for live streaming events in HD quality is rapidly growing on a global scale. We are excited to be involved in this Australian-first event where Akamai's HD Network will give end users a rich, interactive online viewing experience," said Stuart Spiteri, managing director of Asia Pacific for Akamai Technologies.

Mike Barros, senior vice president of worldwide sales, Inlet Technologies, said, "Inlet's Spinnaker enables content creators to produce multiple synchronised streams at different bit rates which, when delivered to the internet, allow people with varying bandwidth connections to watch live and interact with MC Hammer. Inlet, along with our partners, is ready for Hammer Time live."

"MC Hammer would say 'you can't touch this' but in fact with an enriched user experience leveraging twitter and of course Silverlight, you'll feel like you actually 'can touch this' – and the rest is gold!" Readify CEO, Graeme Strange

"Our video streaming expertise has always helped clients deliver high quality content. We have worked with Microsoft, Akamai Technologies and Inlet to seamlessly deliver content to our audience and in preparation I've been wearing my MC Hammer pants all week!" Ian Gardiner, CEO, Viocorp.

To view a recording of the live event please go to: www.mtv.com.au/mchammer.

More information on IIS Media Services and Smooth Streaming can be found at http://iis.net/media and http://www.iis.net/media/experiencesmoothstreaming.

More information about Silverlight 3 can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight or at the Microsoft Silverlight Virtual Pressroom at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/silverlight/default.mspx.

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For further information or interviews please contact:
Jacquie Potter
Howorth
02 8281 3893
jacquie@howorth.com.au