Streaming Media West 2006 Wrap-Up: User-Generated Content is Serious Business

The Exhibit Floor
The show floor was active with vendors and attendees. Here's a sampling of highlights from vendors I spoke with.On2, in addition to their Flix Publisher, is releasing TrueMobile, a system that allows service providers and programmers to deploy mobile video on 2.5G and 3G networks. Their efficient compression enables video to be delivered at data rates as low as 20Kbps. The example they demonstrated at Streaming Media West was live television streamed through a capture card from their east coast offices to a cellphone. There was a slight, 1-2 second latency in comparison to a laptop streaming from the same source, but even at 5fps the motion was relatively fluid, and the picture clear. Licensing models are based on either per-use, or an annual fee, allowing a flexible ramp-up without a huge upfront investment.

Adobe wasn't exhibiting, but Flash group product manager Chris Hock stopped by for a chat. Though he had no new developments to share, he did mention an internet TV application being developed in-house at Adobe, code-named "Philo." The Apollo-based application streams branded, syndicated video content. He also was very excited about the opportunities that Adobe's recent acquisition of Serious Magic will open up for integration of even more video tools into their products.

WowzaTV is making great headway in completing the version 1.0 release of Wowza Media Server. They are now supporting shared objects in addition to recording and streaming. They've rewritten the core of the server from a Java servlet to pure Java, just since the Flash in the Can conference in Hollywood a month ago (do these guys ever sleep?).

NeuLion and Africast announced a joint venture aimed at "rebranding Africa," according to Africast chairman and CEO John Sarpong. Africast TV will roll out 30 TV channels from 25 African countries, available via NeuLion's IPTV platform for $19.95 per month, in December. "So many of the images you see of Africa are negative," Sarpong said in a press conference. "Africast TV will bring the beauty and positive images of Africa to viewers all over the world." There are more than 1.2 million African expatriates in the United States, according to the U.S. census, and the community tends to have higher income and education levels than other immigrant populations, Sarpong said. The service will feature news, sports, and popular African movies from "Nollywood," the West African movie industry that's currently producing more films per month than India's better-known "Bollywood," Sarpong said.

Streaming Media West seemed to be fertile ground for all sorts of connections, alliances and, who knows, maybe even the next big acquisition or merger. There was a lot of serious business being conducted here. The industry as a whole seems to be focused clearly on monetizing, not just joining the user-generated content party.

Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen contributed to this article