Bringing down the walls

New Web technology to provide gavel-to-gavel coverage

By Jeff Smith, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published June 17, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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The Democratic National Convention Committee is preparing for a crush of traffic on its Web site in August.

And that's what the committee wants, with plans to offer gavel-to-gavel coverage, including live speeches, caucus meetings, video highlights and archived material that can be accessed on demand.

"The real goal online is to bring down the walls of the Pepsi Center so as many people as possible can experience what's inside," said Aaron Myers, the DNCC's director of online communications.

Microsoft and Broomfield- based Level 3 Communications, which operates an international fiber-optic network, are the official Web-streaming providers.

The convention Web site, demconvention.com, will employ Microsoft's relatively new Silverlight technology.

Officials won't disclose details yet, but Silverlight enables such applications as information bubbles over a video screen, multiple video windows, and zoom-in and zoom-out features.

For example, let's say someone is watching a live speech from the convention floor on the Internet.

You might be able to click a portion of the screen and look at a biography of the speaker and career highlights. Or there might be a separate video featuring the speaker in the corner of the screen. Or you may be able to zoom in on the speaker.

"There's a lot of ideas on the table," said Joel Cherkis, Microsoft general manager of government solutions. "It comes down to the information that people will want to consume, and then the staffing behind the scenes" to assemble the material.

The Internet has been around for a while now, but the Democratic National Convention in 2004 in Boston offers little in the way of a model.

That's because, in the life of the Internet, "four years is an absolute eternity," said Grant van Rooyen, president of Level 3's content markets group.

The consumer appetite for online content, especially video, has grown. Witness the popularity of YouTube, the dramatic increase in the number of Internet blogs, the proliferation of interactive content.

Then there's the technology.

"I think we did great things in a different (era)," said Brook Colangelo, the DNCC's director of technology. Colangelo also was on the team in 2004.

While the streaming was good back then, today "we are talking true HD (high definition)," he said. And Microsoft's Silverlight technology is really only made possible by the fact that most U.S. consumers now can get high-speed Internet services in their homes.

Cherkis indicated speeds of 1 to 3 megabytes a second should be sufficient to have a good viewing experience on the convention Web site.

Silverlight can evaluate how a home network is performing, and make adjustments in the video stream so it continues uninterrupted, he said.

Will the amount of video content on the convention Web site and the possible high traffic make for the toxic ingredients of a Colorado Rockies-type computer crash?

Not likely.

Level 3's plan includes caching or storing the convention Web site in more than 30 locations in North America, Europe and Asia. That's meant to increase performance and reduce the risk that servers get overloaded and fail.

Company officials say the network's built-in intelligence will put certain servers into action depending on the demand from a particular geographic area.

Level 3 has an advantage because it has Internet data centers/server farms throughout North America and Europe, enabling it to achieve cost and performance efficiencies.

smithje@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5155

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