3600 hours of total coverage. 2200 hours of live action. This year’s Summer Games features more online highlights, rewinds, features, and live events than ever before. We’re honored to have been selected by Microsoft to be the primary provider of content delivery services for video content on NBCOlympics.com on MSN.

"What we're seeing with the 2008 Olympics is the beginning of a multiplatform strategy for content distribution around a major global event," said Mike Gordon, Chief Strategy Officer, Limelight Networks. "This breakthrough event shows that media companies are adapting to the way broadband households are consuming content."

Here’s how we’re helping to make this year’s Summer Games one of the largest online events ever:

1. First, high-definition video streams of each game are sent to the International Broadcast Centre in Beijing.
2. There, the video is encoded into an Internet-ready format by Windows Media servers, and sent by satellite to NBC headquarters in New York.
3. Next, the video is delayed by one-minute, enabling MSN and NBC bloggers to add live text, and for the play-by-play commentary to be synchronized with the video footage.
4. Finally, the content is sent to Limelight Networks. The video is immediately sent out to consumer desktops via LimelightSTREAM. The content also is captured and stored on our servers, to be made available for on-demand viewing via LimelightDELIVER.
5. Consumers can view the content using the enhanced Microsoft Silverlight 2.0 player.

The Limelight Networks professional services team is also providing 24×7 monitoring and onsite support for Microsoft and NBC during the length of the Olympics broadcast.

“This is by far the most ambitious live streaming coverage of an Olympic Games,” said Gary Zenkel, President, NBC Olympics. “And we are thrilled to be working with Limelight Networks to deliver unprecedented online video streaming access to the Beijing Olympics.”

With massively provisioned delivery centers, direct connections to nearly 900 last-mile networks around the world and a global fiber-optic platform, Limelight Networks enables “mission critical streaming.” This means that content is delivered in its highest fidelity possible without stuttering, and viewers get access to content with just a click – no waiting rooms involved.