 
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
              
|
Thursday, July 27, 2000
Multimedia delivery is one of the bright spots on the Pittsburgh technology landscape. With local companies developing sophisticated technology to deliver multimedia content, the way you watch your favorite movies, videos and even TV series will change.
Say you want to find a specific scene within your favorite movie. You can browse through the entire movie -- or, if the clip was enhanced with technology provided by Pittsburgh based Mediasite, you'll be able to swiftly find the scene you want by typing in key words or dialog to prompt your desktop viewer to find that scene.
Perhaps you want to share your favorite movie with a friend or associate. Mt. Lebanon based Sightsound.com has created a commerce engine that lets you share without stealing. It allows free distribution of the media files, but doesn't allow the files to be viewed unless they've been paid for (on a system by system basis) -- which means the major studios are more likely to distribute their wares digitally. The company is working with major Hollywood studios to entice them to offer more productions via Web using the Sightsound technology.
Pittsburgh has its hands in enhancing TV viewing too. Jovio has created a technology that let's you store your favorite TV shows on hard disk for later viewing. It goes steps beyond similar concepts from ReplayTV and TiVo because Jovio allows you to control the process remotely using the Web. Jovio is hoping your local cable company will offer the Jovio service directly to you via enhanced set top boxes.
These companies heighten the multimedia experience for users, and provide a unique revenue opportunity for businesses -- a combination that enhances their economic viability.
Q: I'm thinking of streaming video via Internet. How many people can I expect to watch?
A: A lot more people than ever before are watching video streams on the Internet, and the number is expected to grow dramatically. The growth is due to more quality "shows" to watch as well as faster connections on which to watch the shows.
Have a question for David Radin? Contact him at his Web site
At the user end, many users are moving from dial-up connections to high-speed broadband connections such as DSL and cable modem. This makes the viewing experience much better. And with the explosion of content, software products are consistently being released to find and watch these streaming programs more easily.
From a qualitative standpoint, the biggest streamed event last year was Paul McCartney's concert at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, England, which served more than 5 million streams over the course of a week.
The McCartney audience was as big as the next two most viewed events put together -- the NetAid Benefit and the news feeds about the death of John F. Kennedy Jr.
During 1998, the most viewed event was the Victoria's Secret fashion show, which tripled the typical daily volume of Broadcast.com -- at that time the largest streamer in the world. At 1.5 million visitors, its 1999 event was comparable to its 1998 event in viewers. Of course, in 1998, it was truly unusual. Nowadays, streaming video is commonplace.
Measurement of streaming video viewers is still imprecise because more than one person can watch each stream.
Alas, the number of viewers of streaming video still pales next to that of network TV. (I'm proud to say the same holds true for network radio versus streaming video.) "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" on TV, for instance, averages more than 28 million viewers per episode. The gap between traditional media and streaming Internet media will decrease over time as more people become empowered to partake in streaming media.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
