Live Streaming Video – March Madness Ups Capacity For CBS Sportsline

NEW YORK -

The sports mega Web site, CBS Sportsline, has doubled their bandwidth to be able to offer live streaming video of the NCAA men's basketball tournament for the upcoming March Madness, which will give brand new meaning to the word “Madness” CBS broadcasts the games and will be streamed live free of charge from their site.

The huge level of interest in consuming the basketball games online has demonstrated the allure of streaming video and the need to adjust IT infrastructure accordingly to support it, if only at peak periods.

NCAA March Madness on Demand last year was presented for free for the very first time since its debut back in 2003, which produced huge traffic results. In fact, they had more than nineteen million video streams and over five million visits, which resulted in one of the largest live Internet events ever.

However, this year CBS Sportsline has created a video player for the event and has increased their bandwidth connection from the 80 gbps it used last year to 160 gbps for this season’s tournament. CBS also uses a content delivery network service to push out the video streams.

In order for CBS to effectively control the massive anticipated peak during the games on March 15 and 16, access to the March Madness On Demand video player will be carefully managed using what is known as a virtual waiting room.

If demand exceeds peak capacity during the opening rounds or at any other point of the tournament, then virtual lines will form. CBS feels this is the best opportunity to view live streaming video from the tournament and that fans should pre-register for stream videos in order to obtain VIP status.

Fans who do not will be placed in a general admission area where they will experience longer wait times to get into the live streaming video player if it is full on game days.