SXSW Ice Cube Webcast Case Study

Microsoft Silverlight™

Silverlight delivers rich, cross-platform, interactive experiences, including animation, graphics, audio
and video.

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Featured Site: Behind the Scenes - iStream Planet and UNTV.com Make Ice Look Nice.



"Flash hasn't been integrated with one particular video format the way Silverlight is integrated with Windows Media, so it really opens up a whole new world with regard to what you can do with video—being able to slice it up and throw it around the page and really integrate it into a web experience. It's going to revolutionize the industry as far as I'm concerned." -Mark East Director of Managed Webcasting, iStream Planet

The Situation

Assignment: Deliver Ice Cube's performance—live—and be sure he looks good.

The managed webcasting experts at iStreamPlanet were engaged to do the live event production and delivery for the Ice Cube concert at the South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival. The event’s online host would be Ice Cube's new Internet venture UVNTV.com, a site intent on taking the picture quality of web video to the next level. Streaming the Ice Cube event live was a UVNTV.com first.

The Challenge

Get to a place where Macs and PCs can both feel the love.

First of all, the team sought a browser-agnostic solution. iStreamPlanet's Mark East says, "In the past, Internet video had to be offered using multiple streaming formats to handle different audiences. Historically, live webcasts were either Windows Media, Real, QuickTime or Flash." Both iStreamPlanet and UVNTV were excited about tapping into the power of Windows Media technology as viewed through Silverlight, which would offer a completely browser-agnostic, platform-agnostic solution for virtually anybody to be able to watch the Ice Cube webcast.


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The Solution

A downright smooth video experience.

Silverlight allowed for the kind of picture that was key to UVNTV's commitment to HD-quality images. UVNTV COO Rick Freeman explains, "Silverlight allows us to maintain an optimal bitrate in order to offer a level of quality in video streaming which could never be done with Flash. Our video streams in real time for a crystal clear user experience where one video or clip or full-length feature will play seamlessly behind the other. There's no buffering involved, which never could be accomplished with Flash."

The Upshot

With Silverlight in its corner, UVNTV.com is just getting started.

The success of streaming the Ice Cube concert live really opened Freeman's eyes to the possibilities with Silverlight, particularly at a live music mecca like SXSW. Now he's got big plans, saying, "Based on what I've learned about this whole SXSW experience, I think we're only scratching the surface of what we can do with this Microsoft Silverlight technology. We’re going to make some great innovations and, hopefully, we'll be back here in Austin next year."

About iStreamPlanet

iStreamPlanet has created a variety of managed and hosted services for getting content on to the Web. Its nationwide footprint of webcast producers, each with many years of experience in producing the largest webcasts, makes the process of putting live events on the Web painless. iStreamPlanet also has strategically located specially equipped encoders and satellite and fiber content acquisition facilities, to reduce the costs of getting content to the Web. Through its Media Suite, customers can create rich media presentations, build and publish fully branded media player experiences, and secure and monetize their media assets.


About UVNTV.com

UVNTV.com hosts the world's first real-time online television network that also acts as an online community. UVNTV's capability allows viewers to watch their favorite shows in high definition, surround sound, and full screen quality. In addition to functioning as a network, the UVNTV community allows users to send messages to one another via text or video chat and to upload user generated audio and video files for opportunities in film, television, and video games. UVNTV is dedicated to promoting artists, sharing creative ideas and preserving artistic democracy on a global level.