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In an interview with ZDNet Asia, Miller's eye on the timeline was apparent. "We have 106 days to go," he said Wednesday.
NBC intends to broadcast and archive 17 days of the Olympics on the site, resulting in 2,200 hours of video which users may watch live and call up on-demand for free.
Miller sees this as a complementary repository to what the broadcaster will air on TV. "We're talking about doing 25 sports online that we aren't really doing on broadcast. There will be significantly more content online than on air," said Miller, adding that he has observed strong demand from fans for on-demand content.
The site's Web video player is built on Microsoft's Web application framework, Silverlight. According to Miller, the broadcaster has been planning the project over the last nine months, with more intensive coding work done on the backend with Microsoft over the last four months or so.
Miller said the team had a working prototype in February this year, which has since gone through "various iterations." The project will face another round of testing midyear, which will coincide with the Olympic qualifying rounds, allowing the team to test the player's live streaming functions.
Since the prototype, the team has focused on tweaking the user experience of the player, including the navigation interface, MBR (managed bit rate)--which matches the quality of the video to the user's connection speed--and metadata tagging of video streams to make searching and archiving easier.
"My biggest concern is that the users will have a great experience, and that they will be able to navigate through all the content, and to make sure they'll come back and keep consuming on our platforms," said Miller.
This user experience is affected by the advertising that viewers are exposed to. Working with DoubleClick as the serving engine, Miller said the Silverlight player will display "dynamic ads" to viewers.
"Timing and how we deliver ads will matter to the user experience," Miller noted.
Miller said he is also concerned with piracy of the broadcast streams. To that end, NBC is "engaged closely with the IOC (International Olympic Committee) to fingerprint content to protect its rights-holders (and is) having conversations with user-generated content sites such as YouTube to ensure they work with (NBC)," he said.
On NBC's choice of Silverlight as a platform over competitors, Miller noted NBC's existing partnership with Microsoft in MSNBC, but added that Microsoft is a "holistic partner", being able to offer its services as a "media and technology company, not just a technology partner".
NBC is also working with a Los Angeles-based digital media agency, Schematic, to develop the user interface. Schematic CTO Matthew Rechs told CIO magazine last month that some 25 people were working on the project at the agency.
Victoria Ho of ZDNet Asia reported from Singapore.
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International Olympic Committee,
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digital media
Save up to $300/year on phone bills
then download VS Studio "Express" Engineering tools, which btw
are now expired - not Silverlight though.
It's ironic the only reason I wished to download the VS tools was
to look at LEGO Robotics Samples such as MS versions. And
then, of all things, come to find out that the Olympic Committee
has DISQUALIFIED what COULD BE around the same time!
"Amputee Sprinter Denied Olympic Entry, Shifts Focus - January
14, 2008"
Go figure!
No amount of money that MS used to bribe NBC could be worth the risks.
partnerships and going into bed with the money. Happens all the
time. But with the this, I think there will be very little exposure for
it after the olympics. And most will simply ignore it after.
I have developed flash apps and graphics and recently tried Silverlight. The honest truth is this is alot simpler.
If you are developing in MS Visual Studio you will have 1000x easier time integrating Silverlight into whatever app you are developing.
IF YOU ARE NOT USING MS VISUAL STUDIO...
The benefit is GREATLY reduced. But at the end of the day I have never developed a simple animated button and had the code instantly integrate into my button.
IT IS THE MOST AMAZING FORM OF INTEGRATION I HAVE EVER USED.
I know full well that once MS Visual Studio developers and designers get used to it it will help speed development time by at least half the time it takes to deploy the same utilities based in flash.
I STRONGLY recommend any developers using visual studio give it a try by downloading Expression Blend:
http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/
And listen. I dislike MS for the same reasons everyone else down but if their is one thing MS has done well in all the history it was Visual Studio. And any additional tools they can give/sell us that benefit my job, I will buy. This is worth it.
I want to develop in 1 language not several.
I personally think non designers or developers have any right to comment about silverlight without researching how much easier it makes our job.
This is not Microsoft VS ADOBE argument.
It is a development environment argument.
Their is ZERO benefit of silverlight of flash for end users. This is for developers and about saving money through saving time.
Please understand this.
I defend silverlight because I am lazy and want to work less...