Democrats Slug it Out in Live Webcast

When the Human Rights Campaign needed to webcast its presidential forum live to it's 500,000 members, New Media Mill assembled a fibre optic feed of the event and placed it on the same streaming network used by CNN and ABC News.

When the Human Rights Campaign needed to webcast its presidential forum live to it's 500,000 members, New Media Mill assembled a fibre optic feed of the event and placed it on the same streaming network used by CNN and ABC News.

The challenge facing the Human Rights Campaign was the uncertainty about how many of its members might log on for this group's first-ever presidential forum. All but a few of the Democratic candidates agreed to be grilled by Sam Donaldson of ABC News, so the potential for attendance was enormous.

Normally, webcasts are pulled together using just a few servers, but with a potential audience of 500,000, New Media Mill turned to its partner Real Networks and arranged for a feed on the Seattle firm's perimeter network of streaming servers located around the country. Perimeter networks spread the load of a webcast over many servers dedicated to specific regions of the country, greatly reducing the likelihood of network congestion.

The same perimeter network keeps the news streaming for CNN and ABC News. In Washington DC, where the event was hosted, New Media Mill arranged for a feed utilizing fiberoptic lines from the Reagan International Center, liberating the Human Rights Campaign from the vagueries and expense of a satellite uplink.

With two encoders for redundancy, the live encode was delivered without a hiccup--and the thousands who logged on to watch were treated to one of the political season's first live debates!