PLANO, TX. (Top40 Charts/ ViewCast Corporation) -
Music fans around the world watched live on the Web as
Avril Lavigne accepted top honors at the 14th annual MTV
Europe Music Awards (EMA), streamed online with the Niagara Pro from ViewCast Corporation (OTC Bulletin Board: VCST). Designed for high-quality, high-resolution video capture and streaming, the Niagara Pro enabled MTV
Europe to offer exclusive Web broadcasts featuring award presentations and dazzling performances from A-list stars including Lavigne, the Foo Fighters,
Babyshambles (fronted by Pete Doherty), Mika,
Nicole Scherzinger, will.i.am, and My Chemical Romance.
"The MTV Europe Music Awards is known for being a sensational event, and the live element contributes to the electric atmosphere and appeal of the show," said Alec Hendry, director of Digital Media Operations and Development at MTV Networks Europe. "The Niagara Pro proved to be a reliable, easy-to-use tool for us in bringing that excitement to a broader platform and a greater number of viewers. We were very pleased with its performance in enabling live streaming to MTV's worldwide Web presence."
Debonair hip hop artist Snoop Dogg hosted the 2007 MTV Europe Music Awards, where pop punk goddess Avril Lavigne was the biggest winner, taking home two awards - Most Addictive Track and Solo Artist of 2007. Album of the Year was won by Nelly Furtado for 'Loose,' which sold seven million copies, while 30 Seconds to Mars triumphed in the Rock Out category. Linkin Park took home the gong for Band of 2007, while the on-going feud between Kanye West and Justice was settled once and for all when Justice won the Video Star prize for the second year in a row. The U.K.'s biggest rock act Muse scooped the best live act 'Headliner' Award and won the U.K. and Ireland category.
More than 50 million votes were registered across Europe in the 2007 MTV Europe Music Awards, which totally reinvented itself this year to allow viewers and music fans to take control of nominations and voting for the all-new award categories.
Held Nov. 1 at Munich's Olympiahalle, the MTV Europe Music Awards show broke new ground with its offering of multiplatform viewing options. In preparing for the event, MTV asked Garland Partners Limited (GPL), a U.K.-based reseller of digital video streaming and IPTV solutions, to assist in implementing a Web streaming solution for the awards show. Working along with ViewCast, GPL provided on-site technical assistance to MTV as it deployed two Niagara Pro units to cover the show's dynamic presentations and performances.
The Niagara Pro dual-channel encoder is a professional rack-mountable streaming media appliance capable of delivering two channels of full D1 high-quality streaming video. ViewCast's Digital SimulStream technology enables simultaneous streaming of multiple resolutions at multiple data rates in multiple streaming formats. The Niagara Pro's three preprogrammable EZStream buttons allow users to create custom encoding profiles or use predefined encoding profiles, then execute those profiles simply by pressing a single button on the encoder's front panel.
During the show, the Niagara Pros provided live streaming Flash and WM9 content, which in turn were delivered to Akamai for live streaming on https://www.mtvema.com. This was the first time the new integrated live Flash option in the Niagara SCX Pro software was used in a live event.
"We designed the Niagara Pro to provide professional-grade performance around the clock in demanding streaming applications, and the system is a perfect fit for events such as the 2007 MTV Europe Music Awards," said ViewCast Senior Vice President of Sales Gary Klembara. "MTV always has pushed the boundaries of media and technology to provide viewers with fresh content, delivered in an innovative fashion. With live streaming of this year's show on the Web, the network continues this tradition. We're pleased that our technology played a key role in making the online broadcast a success."
More information about the Niagara Pro and other ViewCast products is available at https://www.viewcast.com.
