Alibaba and Olympic Broadcasting Services have joined forces to enable rights-holding broadcasters (RHBs) of Beijing 2022 to receive live footage through the public cloud infrastructure for the first time.
During Beijing 2022, over 20 broadcast organisations are using Live Cloud to receive multilateral live signals of the Games in either ultra high definition (UHD) or high definition (HD) via OBS Cloud.
Previously, broadcasters would rely on dedicated international telecommunication optical circuits. Instead now able to leverage the infrastructure of Alibaba Cloud, OBS is able to deliver all the live multilateral content in high quality over the public cloud.
According to Alibaba, Live Cloud’s benefits of low latency and high resilience, mean that content transmission via cloud is on its way to outperform other methods of distribution when it comes to expandability, flexibility, and cost.
“Transmitting live content through cloud is a particularly useful resource for broadcasters who cannot attend the Olympic Winter Games in person or afford the heavy upfront investment of on-premise infrastructure,” said Selina Yuan, general manager of international business, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.
“We hope that cloud technologies will not only reduce the cost associated with broadcasting, but also bolster the coverage of the Olympic Winter Games as more RHBs can access the live footage and choose the feeds they prefer. Ultimately, we hope more sports fans around the world can enjoy the excitement of the Olympic Winter Games.”
OBS and Alibaba have also deployed multi-camera replay systems for frame-freeze slow motion replays during the Games, marking the first time that Olympic broadcasting is relying on a cloud-based workflow for such replays.
Leveraging Alibaba’s edge cloud solution, live multi-angle footage of the Curling and Speed Skating are being captured and compiled via the edge cloud for real-time processing and editing, before the chosen moments are shared as a replay through the multilateral feed.
