Described as one of the most demanding network environments in the world, the groundbreaking trans-ocean network powered by Cisco will enable the transfer of gigabyte-sized files between Beijing, New York and Los Angeles. In previous Olympics, NBC staff had to work from videotapes to add graphics and captions to event shots. In one of the single most ambitious media projects in history, NBC will present more than 3,600 hours of broadcast coverage during the 17-day event. It would be impossible to use a tape library to replicate enough video copies for use at eight different networks as well as NBCOlympics.com. Using a file-based workflow for shot selection, the network can select shots and distribute them to affiliates even before an event is finished.

Wow CISCO also wants in on the Olympic Money train. Think of the bragging rights if this goes off without a hitch. According to the article, They will try to stream live, extract video from the feed for the highlights and transitions and convert from low res to high res, all without any video tape. That has to be a typo right? Can you make a low resolution video, better? Hmmm...