Asia’s largest sports company upgrades to latest streaming technology

Imagine Communications, a global leader in video and advertising solutions serving the media and entertainment, multichannel video programming distributors and enterprise markets, today announced it has delivered a major upgrade to the online infrastructure of World Sport Group (WSG), Asia’s largest sports marketing, media and event management company. The new platform relies on Imagine Communications’ feature rich and robust SelenioFlex™ Live encoders, designed to deliver massive amounts of sports content to multiple platforms.

From its headquarters in Singapore, WSG delivers almost 600 sporting events annually and over 5,000 hours of programming across more than 30 countries in Asia. The company provides complete broadcast and production services as well as customized coverage of major international sporting events for a global network of broadcast, broadband and mobile partners.

Live satellite feeds are passed as HD-SDI with embedded audio to the SelenioFlex Live encoders. The encoders reliably and efficiently create OTT, mobile, web and live streaming output formats which are then multiplexed and sent to WSG’s content delivery network.

As WSG generates a significant volume of media content daily, the company stands to benefit from enhanced encoding software and a platform that is simple to manage and largely hands-off. WSG uses the SelenioFlex Live Manager software to centralize the management, monitoring and control of the encoders. The platform provides failover and self-healing recovery capabilities to help minimize disruption to the service.

“As the exclusive marketing, media and event partner to the region’s leading sporting bodies and media networks, World Sport Group aims to deliver the highest levels of content quality and service reliability,” said Mark Hardess, president, ASEAN and head of media, WSG. “A robust and reliable encoding platform is essential to us delivering desired expectations, and we are pleased that SelenioFlex encoders are not only reliable, but also simple to manage and monitor.”

“The media world is increasingly a non-stop, online business,” said Joe Khodeir, senior vice president, Asia Pacific, Imagine Communications. “We recognize that customers like World Sport Group demand equipment that is flexible enough to meet their changing needs, automated as much as possible to help ensure low operational expenditures, and highly reliable. The SelenioFlex Live rollout at WSG is a great demonstration of that philosophy in action.”

The SelenioFlex Live encoding platform was installed by the WSG digital media team in collaboration with engineering and services support from Imagine Communications and is now online.

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About Imagine Communications
Imagine Communications Corp. is a global leader in video and advertising solutions serving the media and entertainment, multichannel video programming distributors and enterprise markets, spanning 185 countries. Today, nearly half of the world’s video channels traverse through more than 3 million Imagine Communications products deployed around the world. Imagine Communications provides the most complete end-to-end video solutions and is innovating to deliver the most advanced IP, cloud-enabled, software-defined network and workflow solutions in the world. Visit www.imaginecommunications.com for more information, and follow us on Twitter @imagine_comms.

About World Sport Group
World Sport Group (WSG) is Asia’s largest sports marketing, media and event management company. The Group is involved in delivering almost 600 sporting events annually and over 5,000 hours of sport programming across more than 30 countries in the region. WSG is the exclusive marketing, media and event partner to the region’s leading sporting bodies, major events, sporting venues, athletes, governments, sponsors and media networks.

WSG is part of Lagardère, a world-class diversified media group (Book and e-Publishing; Travel Retail and Distribution; Press, Audiovisual, Digital and Advertising Sales Brokerage; Sports and Entertainment). Lagardère shares are listed on Euronext Paris. www.wsgworld.com