Mukund Acharya, Head of Technology at Disney+Hotstar, revealed the technology behind Disney+ Hotstar’s record-breaking performance during the ICC World Cup 2023 in an exclusive interview.
Although India did not win the 2023 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, the tournament was a big win for Disney+Hotstar, which set a global benchmark by achieving a 5.9 crore concurrent viewership during the World Cup finals between hosts and Australia. Disney+Hotstar, one of India’s leading over-the-top (OTT) platforms with millions of active subscribers.
“We expected an increase in viewership during milestone matches.” We wanted to make sure that users never missed out on the action by providing a seamless streaming experience. “This was supported by a number of new product and technology features,” Mukund Acharya, Head of Technology at Disney+Hotstar, told indianexpress.com.
According to Acharya, the optimized data saving mode for high-quality streaming with minimal mobile data usage, as well as the vertical MaxView mode, which was launched in collaboration with the International Cricket Council (ICC) for on-the-go streaming, contributed to the platform’s popularity during the series. The AI-powered video clarity enhancements, live match feeds, and scorecards also improved.
According to Acharya, the team worked tirelessly in the run-up to the World Cup to improve streaming quality across devices, address last-mile delivery issues, and improve application performance on a newly re-architected platform. To simulate potential usage scenarios during the matches, the system was rigorously stress-tested.
“We used game days and mock drills to simulate potential scenarios, which helped our engineers prepare for the tournament.” Furthermore, to avoid network bandwidth issues, we invested in home-grown technologies to provide high-quality streaming experiences tailored to device, user location, and other modalities,” he explained.
When asked about the platform’s specific challenges, Acharya stated, “Factors such as India hosting the event, matches being available for free on mobile, and a surge in smartphone users compared to 2019 added to viewership excitement.” One opportunity was to scale up to previously unseen levels in digital ecosystems.”
Customized data saver modes, the vertical MaxView format for mobile users, and production techniques such as single-player frames and split screens were some of the standout solutions, he added.
In addition, we own the entire network’s production, transmission, encoding, and streaming pipeline. “We can be very agile and unleash innovations that help us optimize the streaming experience because of this tight integration loop,” Acharya concluded.
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