Sports Technology & Communications News from Around the World

The University of Massachusetts-Amherst’s (UMass) athletic department will use ZiXi’s cloud-based Video Transport Platform to televise its sporting events for the 2011-2012 season.

ZiXi delivers broadcast-quality HDTV globally via the Internet. The company claims its Video Transport solutions deliver live and video on demand distribution from the field over the Internet at a fraction of the cost of expensive fiber and satellite video distribution solutions.

UMass will produce and air over 50 Division 1 games on two New England stations, WBIN-TV and WSHM-TV. Its athletic department wanted to serve its fans across New England and aimed to improve the image quality of its broadcasts and broaden its athletic team coverage.

For some time it toyed with the idea of buying satellite time or using fiber transmission, but it later gave up the idea as these choices did not accommodate in UMass budget.

The University eventually decided to use ZiXi’s video transmission solution that uses the Internet instead of satellite or fiber.

“As a Division I athletic department, UMass wants its fans to be able to follow their favorite teams even if they can’t make all of the games. So, what they see on TV has to be high quality,” said Josh Maurer, assistant athletic director for Broadcasting at UMass. “ZiXi enabled us to give our fans exactly what they want, more real-time, broadcast-quality programming, all within a University budget.”

“New Englanders are huge sports fans, so we are thrilled to help UMass broaden its televised coverage and improve the image quality of its Division 1 games,” said Israel Drori, ZiXi’s CEO and founder. “ZiXi turns the Internet into a better, smarter more affordable way to transport video while maintaining the highest video quality. So, even when televising athletic events, which presents unique challenges due to the amount of movement involved, ZiXi delivers the game in real-time. And, UMass can use ZiXi to extend its viewership to mobile devices and tablets, allowing fans the freedom to watch games anywhere, anytime, and on any device.”

Read a related article at TMCnet “ZiXi chosen to monitor Scripps Networks Interactive's international channels.”

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