Streaming Media - April/May 2008 - (Page 52)

blasts from the past 2001 MARCH 27 REALNETWORKS AND MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL ANNOUNCE SUBSCRIPTION DEAL RealNetworks and Major League Baseball announced a deal to create a subscription service including live audio webcasts of all MLB games and a video highlight service. With this deal, all audio webcasts for every regular season baseball game will be available by subscription only through the MLB.com and Real.com websites. The audio webcasts will be enhanced with synchronized game statistics and pitch-by-pitch animation. —JA MAY 30 .TV UNVEILS PERSONAL WEBCASTING SOLUTION Major League Baseball was one of the first major organizations to embrace streaming for consumer delivery, beginning in 2001 with RealAudio streams of games. After toiling as an internet domain registrant for companies looking to get the .tv extension, the .tv Corporation (www.tv) announced it would start offering a personal webcasting solution at my.tv. The service is powered by POPcast Communications, one of the early do-it-yourself streaming providers. The my.tv package includes a .tv address, an Intel webcam, a two-page website, and video software and services by POPcast Communications. The service also includes a chat function using an instant messaging feature. —JA JUNE 21 DISNEY VP: ‘DON’T GIVE UP’ In his keynote address at Streaming Media West, Disney Internet Group Executive VP Dick Glover told the audience to be optimistic about the future of digital media, despite the bad market conditions. “If you believe in your idea, don’t give up on your vision,” he said. “Don’t bail out at the first signs of trouble.” He called the failure of some companies “healthy Darwinism,” saying we shouldn’t shed tears for those failed companies. —JA JULY 16 SORENSON PUTS THE SQUEEZE ON MAC Sorenson (www.sorenson.com) announced on Monday that it will be releasing a new compression tool for the Mac called Sorenson Squeeze. Naturally, Squeeze only supports output into QuickTime format in Sorenson Video 3 for either streaming or downloading, although it does support Apple’s MPEG-4 format as well. The software can input AVI, QuickTime, or DV video, along with a variety of audio codecs. —JA JULY 26 REALNETWORKS CUTS 15% OF WORK FORCE In a sign that no company is immune to the economic downturn, RealNetworks announced that it was reducing its workforce by 15% and instituting cost-cutting measures. Approximately 140 people out of 950 would be let go. RealNetworks said it was offering employees benefits and outplacement services. —JA OCT. 12 IBEAM FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY; WILLIAMS PURCHASES IBEAM ASSETS FOR $25 MILLION On Thursday, iBEAM (www.ibeam.com) announced that it has voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a Delaware court. Williams Communications, already a 49% owner of iBEAM, signed a deal yesterday to purchase the assets of iBEAM for $25 million in cash. Williams also said it was giving iBEAM a loan of up to $18 million to continue operations until the asset sale is finalized. At the time of the sale, the loan will be repaid from the proceeds of the asset sale. In June 2001, Williams invested $20 million in cash and $10 million in services in iBEAM, which had been struggling to stay afloat. —JA NOV. 14 STREAMING MEDIA EUROPE 2001 Against all odds, the streaming media technology market continues to grow. This was underlined at Streaming Media 2001 last month, where the leading streaming companies faced over 4,500 visitors to London’s ExCeL centre in docklands for 3 days of hard selling, debate, and the presentation of new products and services. —Jon Silk 2002 FEB. 4 PROPOSED MPEG-4 LICENSING DRAWS FIRE In a long-anticipated release, MPEG LA has published a summary of the proposed initial licensing terms for the MPEG-4 Visual technology. Industry reaction is mixed at best, with internet streaming media interests allegedly getting the short end of the stick and moving fast to have their concerns addressed. The terms include the following: the cost of distributing a decoder (player) will be 25 cents with a cap of $1 million per year, the cost of distributing an encoder will be identical to that for a decoder, and a serving fee of two cents per hour for all content (whether streamed, downloaded, or packaged on DVD, CD, etc.) is uncapped. —Bill Bernat 52 STREAMING MEDIA April/May 2008 http://MLB.com http://Real.com http://www.tv http://my.tv http://my.tv http://www.sorenson.com http://www.ibeam.com

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Streaming Media - April/May 2008 Table of Contents Beyond the Bottom Line Technology and Business Trends by the Numbers (Not So) Instant Karma MSN Autos Revs Up Video Production Dow Finds the Right Streaming Chemistry Why Video Is Changing the World A Decade of StreamingMedia.com What's Your Digital Media Strategy? Blasts From the Past: A Decade (Almost) of StreamingMedia.com Headlines Analyze That A League of Their Own: Streaming Media All-Stars Where Are They Now? Wanted: Sexy HDTV That Connects to the Internet and Services All DVRs Anystream Agility Inlet Technologies Spinnaker S3000

Streaming Media - April/May 2008

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