OPINION: IP video is the new CE sun
By Paul Sweeting -- Video Business, 4/24/2009
APRIL 24 | I WENT TO a broadcasting convention last week, and a video streaming conference broke out.
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda
Actually, I didn’t make it to the National Assn. of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas this year. But for anyone following the news coming out of the show, it was clear that the big story of NAB this year was not anything to do with traditional broadcasters or programmers but the competition between Adobe Systems and Microsoft for supremacy in bringing IP-delivered video directly to TVs, set-top boxes and other consumer electronics devices.
And on that score, Adobe easily won the week.
The company kicked off the show by announcing deals with Intel, Comcast, Netflix, Broadcom and other technology and service providers to bring its Flash video player to a wide array of consumer devices, from Internet-enabled TVs to STBs to mobile devices.
Flash is already ubiquitous on PCs and has become the dominant platform for streaming video to the computer screen. By making the leap across the living room to the TV, Adobe hopes to become the dominant platform for streaming broadcast and other traditional TV content over IP networks as well.
Microsoft, which has similar ambitions for its far-less ubiquitous Silverlight platform, countered with the formal release of its previously announced Smooth Streaming feature.
Smooth Streaming is Microsoft’s take on adaptive bit-rate streaming, a technology that dynamically adjusts the bit rate of a video stream in response to fluctuations in the bandwidth of an end user’s Internet connection.
The technique reduces the need for buffering when bandwidth drops and makes it possible to stream live video to viewers with varying quality of broadband service.
Microsoft claims that Smooth Streaming allows for uninterrupted delivery of 1080p video over IP networks.
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