Posted by Derrick on September 2, 2009 under Video Streaming and Compression | 
Inlet Technologies, the leader in live streaming and video-on-demand solutions for digital media, announced it is powering the live online streaming of many of the world’s most prestigious sporting events, establishing the company as the go-to provider of encoding solutions to enable sports-related content on the web.
Inlet has powered the streaming of some of the world’s most widely-viewed sports events such as the Roland Garros French International and The Championships, Wimbledon tennis tournaments, the A1GP and Indy 500 motor races, Major League Baseball, the NCAA Division I Men’s College Basketball Tournament (a.k.a. March Madness), Italian FIFA Confederations Cup soccer matches, as well as the recent Tour de France cycling race.
Inlet also powered the streaming of the World Swimming Championships, the World Championships in Athletics, and 91
st PGA Championship golf tournament to Apple® iPhone™ and iPod® touch® users. Inlet is also working with XOS Technologies to encode live and on-demand sports content for an NCAA Division I conference.
“The Spinnaker 5000 was so easy to set up and use that we were able to get our first encodes under way within minutes of receiving our first unit,” said Steve Quinn, CTO, XOS Technologies. “Video and audio quality has been outstanding and the level of support we have received from Inlet has been top notch.”
Although the ability to stream online content has been around for quite some time, many content owners are just beginning to view live and on-demand streams of sports events as an interactive complement to the traditional broadcast experience. In a recent
article, PC World’s Ian Paul notes that the ability to watch sports online is a privilege that many are willing to pay for. Viewership statistics also support the fact that sports programming is indeed one of the fastest growing segments for streaming content on the Web. A
study by The Conference Board and TNS shows that of the nearly one-fifth of American households who use the Internet to watch television broadcasts online, sports was one of the top five types of shows viewed online.
“There has been an exponential increase, especially within the past year, in the number of sports organizations looking to expand their reach by streaming events over the Internet,” commented Neil Selvin, president, Inlet Technologies. “Our work with some of the early adopters, such as Major League Baseball, has proven the success of implementing a complementary Internet model to drive new revenue opportunities through ad insertions, subscription-based viewing, and other means.”
Inlet’s SpinnakerTM family of encoding solutions is especially well-suited for live sports as it provides broadcast-quality streams over the Internet to any device. With its built-in support for adaptive streaming protocols, including Microsoft Smooth Streaming and Adobe Dynamic Streaming, Spinnaker generates high-quality streams with exceptional quality that enhances online viewing of live sports action. Inlet was also one of the first encoding technology providers to publicly demonstrate and support HTTP adaptive streaming to the Apple iPhone, opening even more opportunities for content creators to generate revenue and build viewership.
Users benefit from the ability to experience their favorite sporting event in an entirely new way – on their device of choice. The viewing experience has become much more interactive and personal, backed by exceptional video quality with DVR-like capabilities, instant replay, and no stuttering, buffering, or other interruptions. Users can easily switch between multiple games or camera angles. URLs or captions, such as scores and statistics, can also be inserted directly into the live stream.
“Inlet has been instrumental in helping us pursue our strategy of putting live baseball games on every device that has a plug or a battery,” said Joe Inzerillo, senior vice president, multimedia & distribution of Major League Baseball Advanced Media. “When we wanted to upgrade MLB.com At Bat 2009™ to allow us to deliver live streams of games to the iPhone and iPod touch, Inlet was immediately able to help.”
Posted by Derrick on August 18, 2009 under Video Streaming and Compression |
HSN (hsn.com), the leading interactive lifestyle network and retail destination, announces the launch of a dynamic new application (“app”) for the Apple® iPhone™ and iPod® touch®. The 45 million subscribers to the devices who download the HSN Shop App now have the ability to view HSN programming 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, throughout the US. The launch creates the e-commerce industry’s first live-video “3-screen experience,” enabling consumers to browse and shop the network’s 35,000-plus array of products from home or on the go.
All the engaging highlights that HSN and hsn.com users enjoy are packed into the clever app, available for download at both the iTunes App Store and hsn.com. Live, ‘round-the-clock HSN TV (along with a library of original videos), the HSN Today’s Special, Items Recently Aired, and the many hosts, featured designers and their tens of thousands of products are among the familiar and favorite hallmarks of HSN programming that will be available through the mobile experience. Additionally, the HSN Shop App brings with it a set of new features, including the interactive shake2shop, which, with a simple shake of the device, generates random product recommendations as well as deals and promotions targeted at HSN’s mobile customers.
“Our customer is fashionable and discerning, and thrives on information, ideas and discovery,” says HSNi CEO, Mindy Grossman. “HSN strives to be the true multichannel experience, and this new iPhone app now allows our customer to take HSN with her, anytime, anywhere, and be that reliable, ‘on-the-go’ resource for lifestyle information she craves.”
The HSN Shop App also makes for a seamless transactional experience, allowing the user to call HSN directly or use the device’s browser to purchase an item. Items can also be saved for later purchase, or emailed to a friend.
While the HSN Shop App is supremely navigable and user-friendly,hsn.com will soon feature a tutorial that walks all new users through the app’s various fundamentals and features. To insure the optimal experience, the app will also evolve based on customer feedback.
“HSN truly leads the way in total convergence of its media technologies,” says Brian Bradley, EVP/ GM, HSN Online & Advanced Services. “The loyalty of our customer base has been predicated in large part on a unique ability to engage them in all aspects of their lives, and the addition of a mobile ‘third screen’ opens up an entirely new dimension for interaction.”
Inlet Technologies’ SpinnakerTM live streaming appliance provides the encoding backbone for the HSN Shop App’s streaming video. Spinnaker fully supports Apple’s HTTP adaptive streaming, which reduces buffering and other interruptions to create an exceptional viewing experience and diminish latency, helping HSN customers move through the purchasing process quickly. Inlet, the leader in advanced encoding solutions for new media, has been a HSN web streaming partner since 2008.
At launch, the HSN Shop App will be marketed via on-air promos run throughout HSN TV programming. Other promotional efforts will follow.
The HSN Shop App arrives amidst HSN’s ongoing multichannel convergence effort, which includes expansion of its Shop-by-Remote service and complete transition to high-definition (HD) format.
Tags: adaptive streaming, encoding, HTTP, Inlet Technologies, iPod touch, Live Streaming, Phone, solutions, Spinnaker, streaming, Video
Posted by Derrick on July 31, 2009 under Video Streaming and Compression |
Inlet Technologies, the leading provider of live streaming and on-demand solutions for digital media, announced that the company is one of the first encoding technology providers to publicly demonstrate and support live streaming to the Apple iPhone. Inlet was the first to showcase iPhone streaming at Apple’s World Wide Developer’s Conference last month in San Francisco.
Using iPhone OS 3.0 and the latest release of Inlet’s Spinnaker live streaming solution, real-time streaming of live sports, news or other events can now reach an iPhone. Additionally, capabilities similar to Apple’s Stream Segmenter will be built directly into Spinnaker, simplifying the customer’s workflow and eliminating additional hardware from the system. The level of interoperability provided by Spinnaker allows content creators to stream live to the iPhone in popular formats including H.264 video and HE-AAC audio. These new advances enable any broadcaster, sports league or entertainment provider to deliver live content to the iPhone with a minimum of effort.
“We are proud to add this to a long list of industry ‘firsts’ from Inlet. By supporting live streaming to Apple’s iPhone, Inlet is once again at the forefront of the digital media revolution. The iPhone is clearly a pervasive consumer device, offering compelling opportunities to reach viewers.” said John Bishop, senior vice president of strategy and business development, Inlet Technologies. “This also reflects our continued commitment to helping companies increase the reach of their content, in any format to any screen, through intelligent media infrastructure solutions.”
Inlet’s Spinnaker family of live streaming appliances delivers stunning picture quality (in HD or SD), allowing content creators to offer viewers a “living room” experience over the Web. Spinnaker supports all of the major formats, including H.264, VC-1, Silverlight and Flash VP6, and allows content creators to stream multiple formats simultaneously from one source. Spinnaker is ideal for live sports, as it can create real-time highlights without the need for additional file preparation. Users can switch between multiple games or multiple camera angles during a single event. URLs or captions, such as scores and statistics, can also be inserted directly into the live stream. Spinnaker also offers calendar-based scheduling (ideal for recurring events), 24/7 reliability, and is designed to be used remotely, in fleets, or locally.
In addition to support for streaming to Apple’s iPhone, Spinnaker also includes support for other adaptive streaming protocols, including Microsoft Smooth Streaming and Adobe Dynamic Streaming. Other updates include multi-encoder synchronization and numerous audio enhancements.
Posted by Derrick on March 19, 2009 under Video Streaming and Compression |
Inlet Technologies, a leader in advanced encoding solutions for new media, announced today full support for Microsoft Internet Information Services 7.0 (IIS7) Smooth Streaming technology. Both live events and video on demand content benefit from the quality and scalability advantages of Smooth Streaming, and Inlet Technologies is the first encoding technology provider to announce support of this new platform. Microsoft Corp. and Inlet will demonstrate live Smooth Streaming in action this week at the MIX09 conference put on by Microsoft.
Smooth Streaming is Microsoft’s new HTTP-based adaptive streaming platform, an advanced media delivery method that switches seamlessly between multiple streams, depending on the available bandwidth and PC performance at any given moment. The best possible quality video stream is automatically delivered to the end user without stuttering, dropped frames or buffering. While the Smooth Streaming process itself is completely invisible to the end user, it results in a much improved user experience. It also offers broadcasters the ability to offer true HD (720p+) streams to clients who have sufficient bandwidth without alienating those with lower speed connections.
Inlet is the first encoding solutions provider to announce support for Smooth Streaming for live streaming and video on demand applications. These solutions are ideal for a wide variety of media companies wanting to stream a range of high quality content, including sports, news, and special events. Both Inlet’s Spinnaker family of live streaming appliances and Armada automated VoD management system have built-in support for Smooth Streaming.
“Microsoft is dedicated to improving all aspects of online video, for both consumers and media companies, but we can’t do it alone. We work closely with industry leading partners such as Inlet to help make Smooth Streaming a truly open platform and to make it as easy as possible for media companies to migrate to it,” explained Steve Sklepowich, group product manager for Silverlight at Microsoft.
“We are excited to have yet another ‘first’ under our belt, with this support for Microsoft Smooth Streaming,” said Neal Page, Inlet Technologies CEO. “Inlet is committed to improving all aspects of the online video business by applying advanced technology solutions to real-world applications. Smooth Streaming is a significant leap forward, and presents a compelling opportunity to help media companies improve the quality of online video for all of their customers.”
Inlet also will demonstrate live Smooth Streaming at the NAB show; visit booth number SL5624 for more information
Tags: Armada, encoding solutions, Inlet Technologies, live Smooth Streaming, Microsoft, online video, Silverlight at Microsoft, Smooth Streaming, Spinnaker, video on demand, VoD
