MSN's Spectacular Olympics Online Video Streaming Is Powered by Level3 and Limelight

The online coverage of the Olympic Games on MSN is spectacular. 

The Olympics often provide  a showcase innovation, as Business Week's cover story explains. 
For this Olympics, in the digital media realm, a milestone innovation will surely be the entrance of Microsoft's Silverlight.

Earlier today at the Beet.TV studio, we spoke with Eric Schmidt, director of media and advertising evangelism at Microsoft.  He is in New York as one of the key executives managing online Olympics coverage with NBC Universal.

In this first clip, he gives us a demo and tour. 

This is a watershed moment for Microsoft's Silverlight, the new rich media browser plug-in.  The latest version, 2.0, is what is being used on the Olympics site and it looks spectacular. 

Peter Kafka at the Silicon Alley Insider has some good things to say about the online video Olympics experience

Eric told us the the two prime content delivery networks for MSN streaming are Level3 and Limelight. An in-depth story around the streaming of the Olympics and Microsoft is up on ZDNet/Asia by Victoria Ho.  For more on streaming, check out this post by Dan Rayburn.

Opening ceremonies start at 5:30 EDT today, just online here in the U.S. 

-- Andy Plesser, Executive Producer