The New York Philharmonic Orchestra was set to have an historic concert in North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang. Just two weeks prior to the performance, Thirteen/WNET was granted permission to simulcast a live satellite feed to a US-only audience on their Great Performances website. They called on Imagine 360 to make this live webcast possible.
Challenge
There was no room for error as many media outlets, including The New York Times, were relying on the stream as a “first peek”. In and extremely short timeframe, Imagine 360 was faced with solving technical challenges such as implementing a geo-restriction on the content distribution level, rather than the presentation layer, due to the possibility of multiple publishing points and specific QA requirements. A solution to facilitate the live webcast had to be devised in a nearly impossible timeframe.
Approach
Imagine 360’s strategic deployment team took the lead with Thirteen/WNET to quickly put together a production strategy. A tactical plan was assembled over night and Imagine 360 assembled their team of trustworthy strategic partners for the content distribution and network engineering to prepare for this historic event. Within just three days of the first discovery call, a solution to meet the client’s geo-restriction requirements was successfully implemented.
Result
The concert was broadcast flawlessly from North Korea at 4:00 AM EST on February 26th, 2008. A New York Times reporter wrote “…that the performance made its way over the Internet was nothing short of amazing.” Imagine 360 has become Thirteen/WNET’s go-to agency for all of their live streaming events.