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How CTV Changed the Way We Watch Online Content

March 3rd, 2010

Congratulations, Canada!

photo credit: BaylorBear78

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

The 2010 Olympic Winter Games have wrapped up nicely with a golden bow for our host country on the world stage, and while the celebration winds down and the hangovers begin to recede as we ease back into our otherwise generally apathetic Canadian lives, it’s clear that we’ve reached a new standard, not only in terms of the performance of our athletes, but also in how we watch them.

CTV owned the tall task of covering the games wire-to-wire across 5 different time zones. Of course, their television coverage was top notch as usual; however it’s their online presentation that garners a gold medal from a user standpoint. Using Microsoft Silverlight technology, CTV has achieved perhaps the best online application system for watching live streaming events that we’ve seen to date. From the quality of the feeds themselves, to accessibility and usability, the whole CTV Olympic online experience was a real treat for Canadians to take advantage of.  It really showed off the power of Microsoft Silverlight as a streaming tool to many skeptics and opened up a door to whole universe of possibilities when it comes to streaming online television in the future.

Usability was the key to bringing universal coverage of the games together in Canada. With a multitude of networks sharing broadcasts of events, it was certainly a daunting task to bring everything under one roof. CTV took care of it by creating essentially a network of live and archived content that turned Canadian modems into virtual PVRs. Did you miss a goal live? Rewind the live stream. Oh, the men’s bobsleigh is in the final run? Switch that to TSN. Canadians were certainly given the opportunity to watch their athletes to the fullest, and in the online equivalent of HD quality no less. It will no doubt be exciting to see how the 2010 Winter Games streaming will pioneer the streaming of online content from now on. I know I’ll be watching.

If you haven’t had a chance to take in the online coverage, it’s not too late. Pretty much all of the Olympic events are archived at CTVOlympics.ca.

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Posted in Product Reviews on March 3rd, 2010

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