Octoshape announced today that the International Paralympic Committee’s website will feature a groundbreaking new video player for the London 2012 Paralympic Games that uses a combination of technologies to integrate live footage and results in a single unified and synchronized view.

Developed by the IPC’s worldwide partner Atos and featuring Octoshape’s innovative technology, here the new Sport Media Application in Real Time (SMART) Player is the first of its kind and is set to revolutionize online streaming.

Viewers using the new SMART player will enjoy the signature features of Infinite HD-M powered experiences with significantly improved video quality and advanced features like Digital Video Recording (DVR), anabolics allowing viewers to pause and rewind live sporting action.

The linear video delivery for the London 2012 Paralympic Games will be delivered to consumers via Octoshape’s recently announced Infinite HD-M Federated Multicast Broadband TV platform. This technology enables the quality, scale and economics of traditional broadcast technologies over the public Internet. Telco and cable operators that are part of the Infinite HD-M Federated network receive signals via native IP Multicast in a way that allows them to easily manage large volumes of traffic without needing to upgrade their Internet capacity.

During London 2012 the IPC will live stream more than 780 hours of sporting action via five channels, two of which – streaming swimming and wheelchair basketball – will benefit from the SMART Player. As with previous Games, the IPC’s online action will be sponsored by worldwide partners Samsung and Visa.

“For London 2012 we are striving to provide the best possible video experience at www.paralympic.org,” said Craig Spence, Director of Media and Communications for the IPC. “We chose Octoshape to ensure an exceptional consumer video experience for the 780 hours of live coverage we will be streaming.”

“We are very excited to power this next generation experience for such an important initiative,” said Michael Koehn Milland, CEO of Octoshape. “Our technology will enable audiences from around the world to view the London 2012 Paralympic Games in the highest quality and smoothest video playback.”

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)  have made a profit of $36 million (Rs1.63billion) during the financial year 2010-11.

Most of that money was earned from its sale of broadcast rights, sponsorship and not to mention their franchise fee of the IPL.

Sources added that the net profit would have been to the tune of $57 million (Rs 2.6 billion) had ICC World Cup under the previous financial year. Income from ICC WC, which ended on 2 April, would get computed only at the end of the current financial year.

The Cricket Club of India, Mumbai, National Cricket Club, Kolkata, Railways, Services and the All India Universities, though full members of the BCCI, do not receive IPL and television subvention.

The BCCI also decided that a former cricketer can now be eligible to be a national selector after five years of retirement instead of the earlier stipulated 10 years.

Meanwhile, the BCCI approved the account for 2010-11 at the WC meeting. It was also decided to hold AGM on 19 and 20 September.

BCCI president-elect, N Srinivasan, said in a brief statement: “The Accounts for the year 2010-11 were approved at the meeting. It was also decided that the 83rd Annual General Meeting of the Board will be held on 19th and 20th September 2011 at the Cricket Centre, Mumbai.” 

Sunderland has appointed Essentially Group to act as the Barclays Premier League soccer club’s exclusive sponsorship agency.

Essentially will be responsible for developing and implementing Sunderland’s sponsorship strategy, price both within the UK and in international markets.

Sunderland CEO Margaret Byrne, prescription who was promoted to the role earlier this month, denture said: “Essentially have a proven track record in delivering quality commercial programmes and sponsors in other major sports and we were very impressed with their desire to bring this experience and expertise to Premier League football.

“We are also delighted they saw the same opportunities that we do at the Stadium of Light and look forward to working in partnership with them.

Essentially sales director Nick Hoyle said: “Sunderland have clearly signalled their intentions with the signing of nine new players. We are very excited to be part of the club’s journey and look forward to enjoying the shared success both on and off the pitch.”

The USA Team Handball Board of Directors has announced the election of Dr. Harvey W. Schiller as its new president and chairman.

The former Executive Director of the United States Olympic Committee, click Commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, ambulance President of Turner Sports and Chairman and CEO of YankeeNets, Dr. Schiller is one of the most respected and accomplished professionals in all aspects of global sport. He will begin his role with USA Team Handball in January. It is not a fulltime position, which will allow Dr. Schiller to continue his roles as Vice Chairman of America’s Cup and CEO of Schiller Management Group, as well as other board and advisory positions.

“I am pleased to be able to take this role and assist the new leadership of USA Team Handball in the re-organization of what is a fun, exciting, cost-effective global team and training sport,” Schiller said: “Team Handball has been successful on a worldwide level for decades and we are looking forward to building effective grassroots programs, as well as recruiting former professional and collegiate athletes who are looking to stay involved with an Olympic team sport competitive at the highest levels. It will be an exciting challenge for us as we grow the game to championship levels in world, Pan American, and Olympic competitions.”

“This is a landmark day for our organization,” said Matt Van Houten, CEO USA Team Handball. “Dr. Schiller’s leadership and successful business acumen will be critical to our growth going forward as we re-launch both the grassroots and the competitive side of our sport in the next year. We feel that we can position ourselves correctly to be a very effective and forward-thinking NGB going forward for the next decade, and having Dr. Schiller’s counsel and strategic leadership is critical for us.”

Die ZDF-Berichterstattung von den Paralympics in London ist auf ein bemerkenswertes Zuschauerinteresse gestoßen. Zu den Höhepunkten zählte die spektakuläre Schlussfeier am Sonntag, 9. September 2012, die von 22.00 Uhr an 1,61 Millionen ZDF-Zuschauer am Bildschirm miterlebten.

ZDF-Chefredakteur Dr. Peter Frey: “Die Ausweitung der Paralympics-Berichterstattung war ein voller Erfolg. Nie zuvor in der Geschichte des Behindertensports haben sich so viele Zuschauer für die Sportler, ihre Geschichten und ihre Technik interessiert. Nicht nur die großflächigen Übertragungen, auch die Einzelbetrachtungen zum Beispiel im ‘heute-journal’ haben fasziniert. Mit den Paralympics endet ein toller Sportsommer im ZDF.”

Das ZDF berichtete im Wechsel mit der ARD ausführlich über die 14. Paralympics (29. August bis 9. September 2012). Mit mehr als 65 Stunden Übertragungszeit informierten die beiden öffentlich-rechtlichen Sender umfangreich wie nie von den Weltspielen der Behinderten.

Die Zuschauer haben das ZDF-Paralympics-Angebot, das auch in puncto Vielfalt und Attraktivität neue Maßstäbe setzte, gut angenommen. Durchschnittlich 0,75 Millionen Zuschauer verfolgten die ZDF-Übertragungen aus London, die vorwiegend vormittags und nachmittags auf dem Programm standen. Der durchschnittliche Marktanteil betrug 8,6 Prozent und entspricht damit in etwa dem Wert von Peking 2008 und liegt etwas höher als Athen 2004. Die erfolgreichste Einzelsendung war die Schlussfeier am 9. September mit 1,61 Millionen Zuschauern und einem Marktanteil von 9,8 Prozent, gefolgt von der Übertragung des 200-Meter-Finales der Männer am 1. September, das 1,24 Millionen Sportfreunde erreichte.

The PGA of America has employed Peak 10 to deliver its cloud computing and data center services.

Peak 10’s tailored solution, troche which includes monitoring and managed data replication, provides core infrastructure for The PGA of America’s Championship applications, including its ticketing, admissions, and scoring systems.

“Peak 10 has consistently provided the uptime and reliability needed for The PGA of America’s most mission-critical applications,” said Sean Walker, PGA director of Internet systems. “Through the use of its cloud services for systems at our Championships, we have been able to add scalability to our high-volume applications as needed, while increasing overall system reliability through redundancy across multiple data centers.”

In addition to cloud services, The PGA of America will utilize Peak 10’s burstable bandwidth, a solution that provides available network capacity to handle traffic spikes on its website. For added protection, Peak 10 will provide geo-redundancy for the Association, and Peak 10’s campus in Charlotte, N.C., will serve as a failover site to the primary system at its Louisville-based technology campus.

“We have worked with The PGA of America for many years, and its migration to our cloud platform was a natural step for its maintaining critical applications,” said Matt Phillips, vice president and general manager of Peak 10 Louisville. “Our team is excited to work alongside such a well-known entity in the sports world. We know how important it is for golf enthusiasts worldwide to have access to PGA sites.”

According to Walker, Peak 10’s management of the infrastructure enables The PGA team to increase efficiencies by focusing less on hardware and maintenance and more on system implementation and operations. “The overall reliability of the Peak 10 cloud infrastructure is a key element in helping us deliver highly-visible solutions such as the scoring system for our premier events.”