A press release from WebTrends highlights the massive traffic Chinese state broadcaster CCTV experienced during their coverage of the olympic games. While we hear the CCTV online video coverage was delivered at lower quality than NBC due to the current state and capacity of Chinese networks, CCTV.com managed to average more than 6 million unique viewers per day during the games versus 4.3 million per day for NBC.

This is not an apples to apples comparison, China has more than 4x the population of the U.S., so more viewers is to be expected. But 100 million total viewers is nothing to sneeze at and a testament to how far China’s networks have come. CCTV.com streamed more than 3,800 hours of live coverage, 1,600 more than NBCOlympics.com. To a large extent the Chinese public is skipping cable and going directly to broadband for their media experience.

On the same day rumors circulated that Microsoft is seeking to offload Agency Avenue A Razorfish to WPP, they  announced a strategic investment with Move Networks. Both of these are very good moves.

Say you’re Microsoft, the former king of the software biz which is trying to stay relevant as digital invades and transforms media. Old enemy Apple is encroaching on core businesses, won by focusing on usability. Google has beaten them by aggregating global audiences and changing how ads are sold.

What Microsoft lacks focus, they make up for in talent and critical core competencies like scale, global reach and relationships with multi-billion dollar corporations. Microsoft must reassert itself by positioning Silverlight and other key products as the technologies used by mainstream media and major corporations.

By investing in Move, Microsoft gets a partner with which to push their NextGen video technology to major media. Among its partners Move counts ABC FOX, and a growing number of international broadcasters. While currently most Move partners use ON2’s VP7 codec, there’s no reason they couldn’t switch to Silverlight and VC-1 at any time.

It’s interesting to consider the Move-Microsoft relationship in the context of larger working relationships with CDN Limelight, design firm Schematic, as well as Disney, FOX and a number of other mainstream media companies. Together these powerbrokers have formed something of an oligarchy in online video player development and content delivery which could become a front for Microsoft and other Adobe competitors.

The Democrats have teamed up with Move Networks to offer an HD Silverlight experience at this year’s National Convention which unlike NBC’s 2008 Olympics player, showcases the power of Silverlight as a platform.

Above: DNCC Video Experience Homepage Player

While the excitement of the DNC may not rival the Olympics, the player offers an awesome full screen 16:9 experience, two camera angles and a separate spanish broadcast, (though that one taps into Comcast’s lower quality 4:3 feed) leaving NBC’s player in the dust. If you’re just looking to watch the convention, look no further.

Above: DNCC Move Networks Player - Full Screen in 16:9 HD

If you’re looking for commentary and independent coverage, all the major online video live broadcast companies are partnered with most of the new media sources that have sprung up over the past four years and are now offering their own live feeds. The democratization of media is pretty cool, PaidContent and NewTeeVee have pretty good lists, though there are almost more independent live streams than we can count.

Internet ratings company Quantcast picked up another online media star for its senior management team. Former SVP of Yahoo’s Publisher Network, Todd Teresi, has joined the fast-rising new media measurement firm (no, not by their own measurement) as Chief Revenue Officer.

Teresi brings his media expertise - and more balance - to the mathematician and engineer heavy leadership, along side Chief Marketing Officer Adam Gerber, who joined The Q last November from Brightcove and previously Mediavest.

The blogosphere (read: ValleyWag) seems concerned that the company currently doesn’t have a product to sell, but we’re not. My conversations with CEO Konrad Feldman, combined with Gerber’s and Teresi’s track record of growing successful media businesses, leaves little doubt in my mind about their future successes.

As Abbey Klaassen reported in AdAge, the company believes that display advertising (and video, I presume) should and can be as targeted as search advertising. Teresi told her:

“The tailoring of content and media to individuals should apply to all aspects of advertising, not just the bottom of the funnel,” he said. “We operate in unit-based media economy where everyone gets the same content and sees the same ad. We’re moving to an impression-based economy. We’ll provide the platform that will enable the industry to do that. And as we introduce those sorts of services, we’ll charge for them.”

Congrats on the new gig, Todd!

The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) has been using online video and social media platforms to directly reach local members and BSO enthusiasts, as well as the growing global audience interested in staying connected to BSO content and activities.

Building off the success of Boston Pops TV, the BSO and PermissionTV are expanding their work together. TanglewoodWebTV.org is helping to extend the summer by featuring Tanglewood summer concert series on the Web for the next several months. New content being offered includes award-winning performances renowned composer Elliott Carter and, behind-the-scenes footage, conductor lessons and other web only content.

Oh, and Go Red Sox!

So. Let’s recap 2008’s Olympics coverage. NBC got Microsoft to front a good portion of the development costs for a video platform that didn’t meet expectations, and they forced those who wanted to watch in high quality on-demand to view on Television or on Vista.

That’s good for NBC, their TV ratings have been stellar. While a lot of people watched online, most chose to watch on the main screen most of the time because the digital experience left a lot to be desired.

And it’s great for Microsoft which got its Silverlight adoption event, had no major issues with the Silverlight 2.0 release and received exclusivity over high quality downloadable VOD delivered by TVTonic to Vista machines only.

While some (or many) will whine about the fact that they could have done better, TV has penetration in 98.2% of U.S. homes, it’s still about making money and the Olympics is about selling ads. NBC Universal is part of a publicly traded company and unlike the BBC they’re in business for their shareholders.

We may be less than impressed with what was offered versus what might have been, but when it comes down to it NBC offered more HD television and online video coverage of a live event than anyone ever. They maximized their audience and their profit by using both mediums to their advantage, and if they can do that, why would they do anything else?

We said so. Seems like most people agree. Check the comments from Chris Albrecht’s piece this morning.

I tried to watch a few live streams and was only able to after telling the player that I had a different cable provider. The content was of fair quality, a bit stuttery, and overall, very difficult to navigate. I just wanted to watch some women’s team archery, damnit!

Andy Plesser, over at Beet.TV, seems impressed with the stats that Neilsen put out, though. To each their own, but I’m still disappointed so far. I’m with Chris. The navigation is a little clunky, and I’d really like to have set up Miro to download the events I wanted while I was at work or sleeping and watch at my leisure. When I went to the “Longform Rewind” page, and selected the RSS feed, I was greeting with a “Sorry, the requested page is unavailable” message. Bummer.

But to Andy’s point, there’s myriad videos to choose from, and probably satisfies most people’s needs. Damn us nitpicky bloggers.

Video streaming platform Mogulus has received an investment from Gannett, estimated to be around $10 million, according to TechCrunch.

Here’s the full profile on Mogulus on Techrunch’s CrunchBase. But the person who can explain it best would be OVW’s own Ben Homer.

I’m sure when he digs himself out from all that money, he can shed more light on the deal.

Ben Adds: CEO Max Haot breaks it down better than I could. And Mogulus is hiring.

CBS has launched their new HD Video portal with plenty of CBS content to enjoy. A quick view of a few shows on the laptop confirms that the content looks clear, sharp and doesn’t stutter. Looking forward to checking it out on the big screen as usual.

But, wait. What about the ads? I’m glad you asked. Either CBS doesn’t have an HD version of the ads they are using, or are streaming in the ads from a different platform. The ad I saw was so fuzzy that I could barely read the text in it. A second version of the ad was also undeniably low-def.

So what gives? From my perch, I know for a fact that there is demand for online HD content for advertisers to run their HD ads in. Could be some A-B testing going on, but all the ads I’ve seen so far are fuzzy.

Solid ad strategy as well. The first pre-roll is only :15 seconds. Once you are into the content, the ads become :30s. Smart. Why? You’ve already got them hooked, and there’s still fewer ads than on TV. Solid value prop.

Ben Adds: The player offers two quality settings - 720P HD and 480i which CBS terms HQ (High Quality). It looks like the ads are in 480i resolution which would explain the distortion. Intel has signed on as a sponsor so what you’ll see is an Intel ad delivered by CBSi.

On a user-experience note, I just became a fan of Flashpoint, it was the first thing I watched and I was compelled enough that I watched the full episode and the next one because of the quality of the video and the content. CBS hasn’t offered much info about how the video is delivered but you can’t argue with the way it looks.

CNET Reports that Gutuit Media has filed suit against Microsoft claiming that Silverlight infringes on several of Gotuit’s patents. Woburn MA based Gotuit provides metadata management and video mashup services for a number of mid and large size companies. (See our previous coverage here)

Specifically, in a complaint filed in California Northern District Court on July 2, Gotuit claims that Microsoft is infringing by:

Using, Silverlight , metadata markers will be added to Olympic video, which will be re-broadcast with anindex, so that the viewing experience can be customized in order to match individual viewing preferences.

Due to the overall vagueness of the complaint, the complexity of the technology involved, and the ambiguity of digital media patents this will doubtless lead to many hours of litigation. Gotuit may not really expect to win, if they had a clear cut case they would have been more specific in their filing.

They’re simply looking for their share of the Olympics pie. Which makes the case a win-win, if you’re a technology lawyer.