Today saw the BBC launch their new live interactive video player designed especially to enable you to watch the Olympics on a multitude of different devices.
The BBC is the sole rights holder for the Olympics in the UK and are able to offer users live video from every venue on every day of the Games.
That means up to 24 different streams of live sporting action at any one time.
Video is available in high definition and then enhanced with some extra functionality that in terms of added choice, rivals anything you would have experienced before while watching sport on your TV.
The key features in the new player are:
• Every sport available live and on demand in HD quality on every day of the Games
• Easy switching between up to 24 live streams at any time
• The ability to pause and rewind live video or jump straight to key moments you may have missed by using chapter markers (e.g. the Men’s 100m final)
• Alerts for the key events that have happened or are coming up so you don’t miss the moments that matter to you
• Extra facts and info on the sports and competitors you are watching alongside the video
The video player combines the video with the associated data that is available to us, creating a much richer experience for our audiences. The types of information and data provided includes:
Olympics Live: worried you’ll miss something happening at another Olympic venue? Olympics Live alerts viewers to interesting moments happening live across the 24 simultaneous streams, making sure you don’t miss any key action
Athletes: discover more about the individual athletes, including information on their performance and previous times, while you watch
Sports guides: wonder how a specific sport works? This feature gives you the info about the individual sports, with five key facts offered for every discipline
Match stats: key real-time statistics about the event
These are some other features of the new service:
Where we are able to show athlete performance data, the key thing is that we synchronise the data and video together so that you always see the stats appropriate for the point in the video that you are watching.
So if you decide to watch a video from the start, we won’t give you the results from the end. And if you are watching live, we won’t show the result of the Men’s 100m before you’ve had a chance to watch it!
You may already have had a sneak preview of the video player as we’ve been trialling a beta version on recent events including Formula 1 and Euro 2012.
Today we took the decision to separate Sport’s live text commentary page and the video player in order to make sure it is fully tested at load before the Olympics kick off.
For now you will be able to watch in HD quality once the bit rate ramps up, pause or rewind the live action or jump to chapters using the buttons below the timeline.
And by clicking in the top left hand corner you can choose from any of the streams we’re offering for Wimbledon, the Euros or our other events on the BBC.
You can watch our video player on your desktop computer and certain tablets that support Flash. On mobiles and iPads you will be able to watch the video but without the extra functionality.
Let us know if you try it out.
Visit the BBC live interactive video player site