Case Study: London Olympics achieves global multiscreen, high-quality streaming at scale with AWS Elemental

London Olympics - Customer Case Study

AWS Elemental provided the encoding and streaming platform that broadcasters needed to deliver the 2012 London Olympics to a global multiscreen audience. Rights-holders including the BBC, Eurosport, Terra, CTV and NHK faced the challenge of preparing hundreds of simultaneous live and on‑demand feeds from 34 venues for TVs, PCs, tablets and smartphones with no compromise on quality, density or cost.

Elemental’s software-based solution (Elemental Live) produced hundreds of adaptive-bitrate streams on commodity hardware, with REST APIs and rapid software updates to support complex live and VOD workflows. The platform powered coverage in 70 countries and roughly 500 million streams — BBC peaked at 2.8 PB/700 Gbps with 34% mobile usage, Terra reached 97.8 million viewers, CTV 31.9 million, NHK 26 million online viewers, and Eurosport saw large traffic and viewership gains — delivering record multiscreen access without major cost tradeoffs.

London Olympics