Volvo Ocean Race partners with Livestream for online racing coverage

by Volvo Ocean Race on 28 Oct 2011 Volvo Ocean Race starts in Alicante, Spain on 29th October 2011 and concludes in Galway, Ireland during early July 2012. Livestream and Volvo Ocean Race will partner to bring new and innovative coverage of this live racing event to sailing fans worldwide.

Volvo Ocean Race is the first content partner on the New Livestream service, a new streaming platform, launched today—building on the strength of the original Livestream—the leading live video destination.

Volvo Ocean Race, the world’s premier offshore sailing competition and one of the most demanding team sporting events in the world, challenges crews to sail over 39,000 nautical miles of the world’s most treacherous seas ending in July 2012 in Galway, Ireland. For all the background information on the race, go to Volvo Ocean Race website.

Beginning on Saturday, October 29, 2011 in Alicante, Spain (0800 local-time Spain) with high definition live coverage of all starts and in-port races, the New Livestream service will allow sailing fans worldwide to experience coverage of this race, in real-time, for the first time ever.

'The New Livestream is the only platform that allows us to share the full story of the Volvo Ocean Race with sailing fans, in real-time. That’s why we are so excited to be partnering with them,' Knut Frostad, CEO of Volvo Ocean Race said. 'Telling the Volvo Ocean Race story requires not only live streaming but also the way to connect the audience with other points of view in real-time including photos, videos, audio and text updates received by satellite, while they are at sea.'

Live text and photo updates from the Iberdrola In-Port Race in Alicante will start early morning on October 29 —engaging the audience with the event in real-time, before the live video feed is available. In addition, viewers will receive minute-by-minute text updates from the Volvo Ocean Race editorial team.

When the fleet sets sail for the Leg Start to Cape Town on November 5, New Livestream will take the viewer out to sea with raw access to photos, text, video, and audio clips sent by the six racing yachts through satellite directly to fans online. All of this is seamlessly integrated with the industry's best HD live streaming technology.

'We are very excited to partner with Volvo Ocean Race as our exclusive content launch partner of the New Livestream service,' Max Haot, CEO of Livestream said. 'Having everything social and in real-time, our new platform combines live streaming race coverage with real-time photos, text, and video clip updates. This gives fans an experience like never before. Live. Redefined.'

At the core of the product is a full social network of live video, allowing viewers to follow the Volvo Ocean Race channel or any of the boat’s own channels and receive notification when new content is available. Every user also gets a personalised dashboard mixing all the content from the channels they follow. Users can discover New Livestream channels through following other fans and influencers.

The New Livestream player features adaptive quality selection based on the viewer’s connection speed and computer power—all the way to 720p HD. The player also includes DVR functionality that will guarantee a moment is never missed.

The New Livestream is available at no cost and without commercial interruption. At first, the New Livestream service is only available for desktop browsers with support for iPad/iPhone/Android devices to be enabled in the near term. Volvo Ocean Race will also offer a mobile-enabled live video feed (powered by Livestream’s original platform) online.

View video on the Livestream website.

Volvo Ocean Race website