Streaming Media - October/November 2007 - (Page 36) the 2007 streaming media readers’ choice awards Encoding Software ■ SORENSON SQUEEZE First runner-up: ViewCast Niagara SCX Second runner-up: RealNetworks RealProducer and Helix Mobile Producer “If you’re producing in multiple streaming formats, or producing the same file to multiple encoding parameters, Squeeze is the clear winner.” So wrote Jan Ozer in his review of Sorenson Squeeze 4.5 (April/May 2007, pp. 78–85), and evidently Streaming Media readers concur. New features in the latest version include batch-encoding files to multiple formats (Real, Windows Media, QuickTime, Flash, MPEG, and others), VBR encoding of Flash Video, and batch-encoding of files to different encoding parameters. Add that with video quality that, in the case of QuickTime and Windows Media, bested that produced by those formats’ “native” encoders, as well as advances in speed that Ozer called “startling, almost incredible,” and this already feature-rich tool became a must-have for large shops that need to be able to move from format to format with ease. Sure, other encoding tools might beat it for particular applications—such as first runner-up ViewCast Niagara SCX for live encoding or second runner-up RealNetworks RealProducer and Helix Mobile Producer for the obvious outputs—but for all-around, multi-purpose encoding software that won’t break the bank, Sorenson Squeeze is hard to beat. Encoding Software - SORENSON SQUEEZE Global Content Delivery Network - AKAMAI TECHNOLOGIES Global Content Delivery Network ■ AKAMAI TECHNOLOGIES First runner-up: RealNetworks Second runner-up (tie): Limelight Networks, Mirror Image, PowerStream 36 STREAMING MEDIA October/November 2007 From CEO Paul Sagan’s appearance on the cover of Forbes, accompanying a story so flattering it bordered on sycophantic, to a second-quarter net loss of $1.7 million and the inevitable “sky-isfalling” rhetoric from financial analysts that came with it, it’s been a heckuva year for Akamai. By any reasonable account, the CDN is still the market leader, though by how much is virtually anybody’s guess (which is why we’ll refrain from quoting market research firms that are as much as 20% apart in terms of how much of the market they claim Akamai owns), and customers include Fox Interactive, E.W. Scripps, Clear Channel, and Internet Broadcasting. All of which means that Akamai is now beginning to suffer a bit from Microsoft syndrome, taking hits just because it’s the biggest kid on the block. But none of that mattered much to Streaming Media readers, who picked it as the #1 global CDN by a wide margin, which means Akamai must be doing something right. And so, it must be said, is first runner-up RealNetworks, which even though it’s no longer a dominant player in the media and entertainment field is still a force to be reckoned with in the enterprise and (especially) education markets. We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the three-way tie for second runner-up, which found Limelight Networks, Mirror Image Internet, and PowerStream all making strong showings in an ever-more crowded field. http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/streamingmedia/0407/index.php?startpage=80
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