The Associated Press and Streamworks International are collaborating on the AP’s new Video Hub 24/7 live news service.
The AP Video Hub provides broadcast-quality world news, entertainment, sports and lifestyle video news for online publishers. The 24/7 live news stream gives AP’s customers access to breaking news events as they happen, anywhere in the world. Users also have the ability to book and schedule live coverage of planned news events on an ad-hoc basis.
Streamworks has been working with AP since September 2011 delivering AP Direct — AP’s raw, unedited news feed via a live stream to online publishers. The new deal cements and extends the relationship to deliver this content via the AP Video Hub platform.
Recent events available live have included the 2012 London Olympics, breaking news from the Syrian civil war and the Norway trial of Anders Breivik. The companies said AP’s live video service uses incoming material from AP’s fixed and mobile links around the world to deliver unedited breaking news video via either satellite or the AP Video Hub platform.
“The way video news is curated, commercialized and consumed is changing significantly,” said Ray Mia, CEO of Streamworks. “AP has demonstrated that it is prepared to make the changes needed to meet these demands. AP Video Hub allows publishers to take content which they can build commercial sales against, and pre-scheduled political events. They can also be the first to get the widest selection of live breaking news from around the world.”
Streamworks’ system was designed to deliver digital video news to web-enabled devices. The AP Video Hub has been linked to Streamworks proprietary software and global delivery network, from multiple ingest sites to ensure geo-redundancy, along with the ability to route signals into any OVP (open video player) or CDN (content delivery network).
The hub’s interface design is intuitive for users. It includes a “follow” stories feature that alerts users via Twitter as new content on a followed story arrives. Additional features include curated topic pages, quick video previews, single-click downloads direct to desktop and real-time search content filters.
Curators select and promote breaking news content together with relevant footage from AP’s historic archive, allowing the development of richer online storytelling for customers who until now have lacked easy access to this kind of content.