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'Live at Wimbledon' Streaming Coverage Announced by NBC Sports

*NEW YORK - June 22, 2009 - *NBC Sports and the AELTC combine to present Live at Wimbledon, providing live streaming and on-demand access to The Championships, Wimbledon it was announced today. The Live at Wimbledon video experience, which will be powered by Microsoft Silverlight, marks the first time that coverage of The Championships, Wimbledon will be widely available in the U.S. via free, live online streaming.

The All England Club’s U.S. network partner, NBC Sports, is celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Breakfast at Wimbledon and is in its 41st consecutive year as the broadcast home of Wimbledon. NBC Sports will present more than 38 broadcast hours of coverage over nine days from Wimbledon beginning this Saturday at 3 p.m. ET, and includes live coverage of the Gentleman’s and Ladies’ Finals. All matches televised by NBC Sports are available online at Live at Wimbledon via NBCSports.com and Wimbledon.org.

In addition to NBC Sports broadcast coverage, Live at Wimbledon will offer live streaming of up to four concurrent courts, on-demand replays of the best matches from every day of The Championships, alternate camera angles for NBC Sports semifinal and final match coverage, daily video highlights, and Golden Moments from the Wimbledon archive, including an on-demand replay of the classic 2008 Gentlemen’s Finals between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, that NBC Sports’ John McEnroe said was the “greatest match we’ve ever seen.”

Live at Wimbledon will be available starting today, the first day of The Championships, Wimbledon with on-demand coverage. Live streaming of NBC Sports coverage and additional matches will begin on Saturday, June 27, concluding with the Ladies’ Final on Saturday, July 4 at 9 a.m. ET and the Gentlemen’s Final on Sunday, July 5 at 9 a.m. ET.

The Live at Wimbledon video experience will be powered by Microsoft Silverlight and offers the first implementation of Live Smooth Streaming for U.S.-based audiences. Silverlight and Live Smooth Streaming enable NBC Sports and Live at Wimbledon to deliver true high definition (HD)-quality streaming video for both live NBC Sports broadcast and on-demand coverage. Live at Wimbledon users will also be able to experience digital video recorder (DVR)-like controls, such as the ability to pause live action, skip back to drive their own instant replays, and join live broadcasts mid-event. Microsoft partnered with application service provider iStreamPlanet to build the Live at Wimbledon video player and handle content acquisition, encoding, and origin hosting with Akamai providing the delivery of the content.

“NBC Sports has a proud tradition of Wimbledon coverage, and we are even prouder to extend our coverage online with the all-new Live at Wimbledon,” said Perkins Miller, Senior Vice President, NBC Sports & Olympics, Digital Media. “Tennis fans in the U.S. can now widely follow Wimbledon online both live and on-demand, and the quality of the Live at Wimbledon video player will only enhance their viewing experience.”

“Building on the success of the NBCOlympics.com broadcast of the 2008 Beijing Summer Games, we’re excited to partner with NBC Sports once again to provide Silverlight and the unique capabilities of Live Smooth Streaming to power Live at Wimbledon,” said Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .NET Developer Platform at Microsoft Corp. “Silverlight enables NBC Sports to provide Wimbledon fans true HD-quality video content and DVR-like features, dramatically improving the quality of the online viewing experience over previous years.”

For more information on Live at Wimbledon, tennis fans can go to NBCSports.com or Wimbledon.org. Tennis fans can also follow Live at Wimbledon on twitter.com/NBCWimbledon.

Members of the media can get more information about NBC Universal and its programming on the NBC Universal Media Village Web site at www.nbcumv.com.

Posted on June 23, 2009
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