March Madness On-Demand to be broadcast online in near HD quality

Cube-dwelling sports fans have reason to rejoice. CBSSports.com has announced the signing of a deal with Microsoft to use their Silverlight video player for March Madness on Demand, which will raise the peak video resolution of the on-demand video by nearly 3x the size.

CBSSports.com will offer nearly 3x the peak video resolution that was previously available for the online video coverage of 2008 NCAA tournament. The improvement will offer 1.5 megabits per second, up from 550 kilobits per second last year. You will need a high-speed Internet connection to take advantage of the higher resolution, but hey - most workplaces have high-speed connections already, right?

Other elements that were used last year for MMOD (March Madness On-Demand), such as a partnership with Facebook and one-click access to the tournament games from dozens of other sports websites, will also return for 2009.