CCTV taps On2 Flix Engine to publish video for Olympics

CCTV will use On2 Technologies Flix Engine to encode and publish video coverage of the Beijing Olympics on its domestic web site www.cctv.com. CCTV will deliver an exclusive video on demand service using On2 VP6-based Adobe Flash video across its network of more than 1000 servers; bringing 24/7 accessibility of the 2008 Beijing Olympics to China's internet users.

Channel 5, dubbed the "Olympic Channel" earlier this year, is spearheading the move to On2 VP6 based Flash video for CCTV. By using On2's Flix Engine, CCTV will benefit from the latest encoding tools for the format which deliver up to a 40% performance improvement over legacy VP6 encoders, and are particularly effective for encoding fast movement sequences characteristic to sports coverage.

"Our bandwidth costs are very high as we need to support a large number of concurrent downloads, and this will inevitably increase during the Olympics," says Mr. Shan Xiaolei, Director, Technology Management Commission, CCTV. "On2 have helped us quickly address this problem by contributing the Flix Engines we need to publish our sports coverage in TrueMotion-based Flash video."

By using On2 technology, CCTV is able to reduce the bandwidth needed to deliver high quality web video by as much as 40%. Following this initial collaboration, CCTV intends to expand the use of On2's solutions to deliver video across multiple screens.

"We are pleased to provide CCTV with the technologies they need to deliver a high quality VOD service in time for the Olympics," says Eero Kaikkonen, Chief Marketing Officer, On2 Technologies. "We see this as the beginning of a long term partnership that will see our two companies working together to lay the foundation of web TV in China."