India might not have won the 2023 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, but the tournament was a big win for Disney+Hotstar which set a global benchmark by attaining a 5.9 crore concurrent viewership during the finals of the World Cup between hosts and Australia. Disney+Hotstar which is among India’s leading over-the-top (OTT) platform with millions of active subscribers. 

“We anticipated a rise in viewership during milestone matches. We wanted to ensure a seamless streaming experience so that users never miss out on the action. This was backed with several, new product and tech features,” Mukund Acharya, Head of Technology, Disney+Hotstar, explained to indianexpress.com. 

Acharya said the optimised data saving mode for high-quality streaming with minimal mobile data usage and the vertical MaxView mode which was launched in collaboration with International Cricket Council (ICC) for on-the-go streaming, helped push the popularity of the platform during the series. So did the AI-powered video clarity enhancements, live match feeds, and scorecards.

Acharya said the team worked tirelessly leading up to the World Cup to optimise streaming quality across devices, address last-mile delivery issues, and enhance application performance on a newly re-architected platform. The system was rigorously stress-tested to replicate potential usage scenarios during the matches.

“We utilised game days and mock drills to replicate potential scenarios which helped us prepare our engineers for the tournament. Moreover, to ensure we don’t run into challenges of network bandwidth, we invested in home-grown technologies to serve high-quality streaming experiences catered to device, user location, and other modalities,” he explained.

Asked about the specific challenges faced by the platform, Acharya said, “Factors like India hosting the event, matches being available for free on mobile, and surge in smartphone users compared to 2019 added to viewership excitement. One opportunity was scaling up to a level not seen before in digital ecosystems.”

To tackle the traffic spikes, he said, Disney+ Hotstar worked closely with tech partners in advance to boost its capabilities.This meant they were able to completely eliminate streaming lag or disruptions, he said. The platform also prioritised democratising streaming access allowing users across India to enjoy an optimal experience irrespective of their location, device, or reliance on mobile data.

Customised data saver modes, the vertical MaxView format for mobile users, and production techniques like single-player frames and split screens were some unique solutions that helped the streaming giant stand out, he added.

“In addition to that, we own the entire funnel of production, transmission, encoding, and streaming within the network. This tight integration loop allows us to be very agile and unleash innovations that help us optimise the streaming experience,” Acharya concluded.