CBSSports.com announces that NCAA March Madness on Demand will have an additional, high-definition quality video player available for users when action from the 2009 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship begins on Thursday, March 19. CBSSports.com has selected Microsoft Silverlight to power its new high-quality player to deliver the enhanced video stream. By downloading the new Silverlight high-quality player, users can upgrade their NCAA March Madness on Demand experience from the standard player (approx. 550 kb/s) to one delivering up to 1.5 mb/s of enhanced video action from the 2009 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship.

Both the standard video player and the high-definition quality option will be offered free of charge. For more information on 2009 NCAA March Madness on Demand and to download the Silverlight player for high-definition quality video, users can visit: ncaa.com/mmod.

NCAA March Madness on Demand (MMOD) is the Emmy award-winning video player that provides live streaming video and audio of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship. Since its inception in 2003, MMOD traditionally provided live video of the first 56 games, starting with the first round, of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship as they were broadcast by CBS Sports, with local broadcasts being subject to blackouts. Beginning in 2008, MMOD started showing all 63 games, from the first round of the tournament through the semifinal and final games of the Men's Final Four making it the only major sporting event that is broadcast live and in its entirety for free on the Internet.

In 2008, there was 164% year-over-year growth in total unique visitors to NCAA March Madness on Demand (4.8 million total unique visitors to the NCAA March Madness on Demand video player) and 81% year-over-year growth in total hours of live video and audio consumed (5 million total hours of video consumed).

NCAA March Madness on Demand's standard video player will launch on March 10 with historical highlights from past NCAA tournaments and be available at NCAA.com as well as via MMOD links on CBSSports.com.