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Case Study: Channel 4, The Tokyo 2020 Paralympics

How Simplestream powered the Tokyo 2020 edition of the Paralymic Games on Channel 4, with out-of-the-box OTT services on a fully accessible, responsive website.

Earlier in 2020, Simplestream was appointed to play a key role in delivering the Paralympic experience at the Tokyo 2020 Games to a wide audience in the United Kingdom. Channel 4 – the British free-to-air public-service television network – chose Simplestream to build an over-the-top (OTT) video platform to support the online coverage of the Paralympic Games, from the opening ceremony to the closing moments, and across all the sporting events.

An animated representation of the Channel 4 OTT portal, with accessible website, during the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic games powered by Simplestream

In this case study, we tell the story of a complex and challenging project. In particular, we explore:

  • How Simplestream built, delivered, and maintained a customisable solution adopted by Channel 4 to bring the video experience to millions of households, through App Platform
  • How Simplestream provided a website that complied with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 standards
  • How Simplestream live-streamed 325 events across the 12-day Games, with an on-site event team coordinated from the London hub
  • The cloud-based OTT workflows that sat at the core of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games delivery, across 1,300 hours of streamed content, and up to 16 concurrent feeds

The solution of choice was powered by – the out-of-the-box product designed to streamline the launch of premium video services, built upon cloud-based, flexible modules, interchangeable, and customisable.

A blue banner for the download of the case study by Simplestream on the Channel 4 Paralympics project