CASE STUDY

The Japanese Basketball League (JBL) is Japan’s leading professional basketball organisation, delivering live and on-demand coverage of top-tier teams competing across the B1 and B2 divisions. The league was looking to expand its digital reach and streamline the delivery of live events for domestic and international audiences. To achieve this JBL required a flexible and scalable streaming solution.

With multiple games taking place every weekend across two divisions, the JBL needed an end-to-end live event management system capable of:

Handling multiple concurrent live events

Supporting multiple language commentary feeds for global audiences

Distributing real-time streams to platforms with different needs

Enabling a seamless Live-to-VOD workflow for instant replays and on-demand content

The league also required a centralised content management system to simplify ingest and distribution of live feeds delivered by a third-party partner.

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Simplestream deployed our Media Manager platform, a cloud-based console for managing live and on-demand content, to power the JBL’s entire live workflow. The solution was designed to simplify muti-platform delivery strategies by centralising control and support the league multi-language streams.  

Key Features

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Centralised Live Event Management

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All live fixtures are scheduled and displayed within Media Manager’s Live Events Module. Each event includes key metadata and a unique Event ID and embedding across digital channels.

Flexible Distribution Architecture

Simplestream configured workflows to handle a variety of event types:

Standard Matches (B1/B2): RTMP output to YouTube; HLS single-bitrate output to WSC.

International Matches: SRT passthrough to commentary partners; RTMP output to YouTube; HLS output to WSC; additional SRT for Chinese-language broadcasts

Multi-format Outputs: Support for RTMP, HLS, SRT, and archived MP4 allows flexibility across partner platforms and playback environments.

Live-to-VOD Workflow: An automated live2VOD process generates replay assets from the live HLS feed, making each match immediately available for on-demand playback or download.

Embeddable HTML5 Player: Each event generates a JavaScript embed code, allowing JBL to easily publish live and on-demand content across its digital properties. The player transitions automatically between pre-event, live, and post-event states.

Operational Support: Simplestream provides real-time monitoring and support throughout ingest and distribution. Working closely with SoftBank and other partners, the team provided seamless transitions across SRT, RTMP, and HLS pipelines during live events.

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Through the deployment of Simplestream technology, the JBL simplified its operations with all live content managed through a single, Media Manager interface. The turnaround time of content also greatly improved due to instant Live-to-VOD conversion delivering immediate access to replays and highlights. The solution also allows multi-language streaming across YouTube, and international channels, meaning JBL’s audience can view the content wherever it suits them best. The infrastructure built by Simplesteam is also scalable with the league now able to stream multiple live events concurrently.  

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