HockeyTech Broadens Utilization of Zixi SDVP for Broadcast-Quality IP Contribution from Geographically Dispersed Venues

Providing a reliable, immersive streaming experience for hockey fans, scouts, players, and officials alike

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Sep 28, 2021, 14:41 ET

WALTHAM, Mass., Sept. 28, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Zixi, the industry leader for enabling dependable, live broadcast-quality video over any IP, and award winning architect of the Software-Defined Video Platform (SDVP), today announced that HockeyTech, a leader in providing hockey streaming services, information and analytics, has expanded its usage of the SDVP for live, high quality contribution from venues to the cloud for reliable delivery to the HockeyTV streaming platform.

Founded in 2013, HockeyTech is a global leader providing hockey-related technologies, analytics, and information services, on-demand streaming services, live scoring and statistics, full-featured league websites & mobile apps, and a fully automated camera technology. Customers include teams, leagues and organizations, and rely on HockeyTech's cloud-based system for all of their technology needs.

Fans can access live and on-demand streaming of elite hockey broadcasts through HockeyTV, the world's largest channel for elite hockey streams. Streaming from nearly 1000 rinks across the United States and Canada alone, HockeyTV is partnered with over 75 prominent leagues to stream tens of thousands of games per year, and offers over 130,000 games to watch on-demand. This allows HockeyTech to aggregate hundreds of thousands of live streams and analytics content while providing the highest level of live and on-demand video content to its viewers.

With such an extensive geographical reach, HockeyTech was having difficulty getting high quality content out of hockey rinks, particularly in remote locations where traditional service is inconsistent. It needed a way to provide the level of broadcast-quality content customers expected, regardless of contribution location. HockeyTech wanted a solution that would lessen the strain on operational teams dealing with quality or signal loss challenges, lower their support burden, and ultimately increase customer satisfaction by maintaining consistent, ultra-low latency streaming while providing visibility of delivery to endpoints across its complex distribution ecosystem.

To overcome these challenges, HockeyTech chose the SDVP to rapidly implement a turnkey solution for high quality contribution. The SDVP provides reliable, broadcast-quality delivery over any IP network with the award-winning Zixi protocol, resilient congestion and network-aware software that adjusts to varying network conditions and employs patented, dynamic Forward Error Correction techniques for error-free video transport over IP with 99.999% uptime at minimal latency. It provides best-in-class security with DTLS and AES encryption, allows for protected multicast transport, bandwidth efficiency and enables encoder backpressure. To orchestrate, monitor and manage live streams from any location, HockeyTech uses Zixi's ZEN Master control plane to ensure quality of delivery at scale, while also providing significant time and cost savings for operational and support teams with a robust suite of analytics and reporting.

The transition to Zixi was not only seamless but also provided immediate cost savings, allowing HockeyTech to leverage IP networks for reliable, low latency streaming of high-value content from a variety of venue locations securely into the cloud. With Zixi's "first-mile" ingest, HockeyTech can consistently deliver broadcast-quality content without signal degradation from any venue with a solution that lessens the burden on operations by ensuring reliable performance, ease of management and an improved customer experience.

"Like the players out on the ice, hockey technology moves very rapidly. With HockeyTV, we made it our mission to ensure our users can see and understand the game with access to high quality live video" said Stewart Zimmel Siegel, President of HockeyTech. "With a large number of live streamed events where connectivity can be a challenge, our internal teams rely on the unmatched utility of Zixi's SDVP to efficiently ensure a consistent, quality experience for our customers around the world."

"Zixi has spent over 15 years perfecting live broadcast quality contribution and delivery over IP, making it easy to acquire, command and control streams for wide scale contribution and distribution" said Brandon Cooney, Director of Sales, Zixi. "We are very proud to help HockeyTech overcome challenging contribution restrictions and ensure the delivery of its mission critical streams around the world, with the quality of service and quality of experience its customers demand."

Zixi will be showcasing the latest features and functionality of the SDVP during the two-week Zixi Innovates NAB replacement event. Please click here Zixi Innovates Fall Showcase 2021 to see the events or to schedule a meeting with the Zixi Executive team or regional sales representative.

About HockeyTech
HockeyTech has been Digitally Powering Hockey since 2012. Founded by Stu Siegel, a technology entrepreneur, and former Florida Panthers (NHL) Managing Partner/CEO, HockeyTech has become a global leader in hockey-related technologies, partnering with over 75 leagues from around the world. HockeyTech provides on-demand streaming services, live scoring and statistics, full-featured league websites & mobile apps, and a fully automated camera technology. HockeyTech live streams tens of thousands of games annually on HockeyTV and offers over 130,000 games to watch on-demand. To learn more, visit www.HockeyTech.com

About Zixi
Zixi provides a cloud based and on-premises Software-Defined Video Platform that enables reliable broadcast-quality video delivery over any IP network, any protocol, any cloud provider and any edge device. The company offers technologies for broadcasters, enterprises, over-the-top video providers, and mobile service providers around the world. The SDVP makes it easy and economical for media companies to source, manage, localize, and distribute live events and 24/7 live linear channels in broadcast QoS, securely and at scale, using any form of IP network or Hybrid IP environments. Zixi provides enhanced control in large complex networks with ZEN Master, a live video orchestration and telemetry control plane that provides visual tools to configure, orchestrate, and monitor live broadcast channels and events across industry protocols. Over 15+ years, the Zixi Enabled Network (ZEN) has grown to over 300 OEM and service providers and serves well over 700 customers representing most of the top media brands around the world with 20,000+ channels delivered daily. www.zixi.com. Zixi has been working with HockeyTech since 2014.

SOURCE Zixi