Saturday, October 10, 2009

Highwinds and Octoshape Tee Up High Quality Streams for PGA TOUR

Highwinds Network Group, Inc., a multiplatform IP services and content distribution provider, and Octoshape, a provider of streaming solutions for high quality and large-scale events, announced that their technologies have been used for online streaming of the four PGATOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup events on PGATOUR.COM.

PGATOUR.COM’s signature LIVE@ franchise offered live streaming from marquee holes at all four of the Playoff tournaments which included The Barclays (Aug. 27-30), Deutsche Bank Championship (Sept. 4-7), BMW Championship (Sept. 10-13) and THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola (Sept. 24-27). Streaming of the month-long PGA TOUR Playoffs utilized the Highwinds-Octoshape solution and helped deliver quality streams of this high-profile event to global online audiences.

As the demand for high-quality video and an enhanced feature set grows in the online media sector, Highwinds and Octoshape continue to work together to deliver robust, resilient solutions through the Octoshape live streaming solution running seamlessly on the Highwinds content delivery network (CDN). The PGATOUR.COM video player, which is fully customizable and enables golf fans to enjoy enhanced features, including digital video recording, leaderboard overlays, scorecard overlays, social network interaction and more, integrated the Octoshape high-quality video streaming solution for the four FedExCup events. For the same events, all live PGATOUR.COM coverage was streamed over the Highwinds CDN.

“Highwinds is quickly becoming recognized as the go-to CDN for the streaming of high-quality, large-scale news, entertainment and sporting events,” said Steve Miller, president and CEO of Highwinds. “Our partnership with Octoshape, which has included the streaming of such live events as the Presidential Inauguration, the Michael Jackson Memorial Service and now the 2009 PGA TOUR Playoffs, continues to grow to support the future of online video. Octoshape’s live streaming solution is a perfect complement to our robust CDN infrastructure and live delivery services.”

“The streaming infrastructure offered by Octoshape is designed to deliver high quality video, DVR, and instant on playback to global audiences,” said Scott Brown, CEO of Octoshape U.S. “Events of this quality and scale only come from the magic combination of ‘Class A’ production and technology integration like that of PGATOUR.COM, our proven, leading-edge technology and Highwinds’ high-performance CDN.”