Chips&Media Licenses Sorenson Spark Video Decoder

Sorenson Media announced that Chips&Media has licensed the Sorenson Spark Software Developers Kit (SDK) to include the Sorenson Spark video decoder in Chips&Media's optimized video IP. Chips&Media video technology provides multi-standard video codec support for consumer multimedia devices, including mobile phones.

Sorenson Spark is the industry's most ubiquitous video codec and was the first codec used in Macromedia Flash, now Adobe Flash. The decoder exclusively enables the playback of hundreds of millions of videos on the Internet, including those on YouTube, the single largest online video destination site today. The Sorenson Spark SDK allows developers to integrate the Sorenson Spark decoder into a wide array of programmable chipsets and semiconductors. The kit is designed to provide Sorenson Spark decoding on any platform, including custom silicon.

The optimized Sorenson Spark decoder will be bundled with Chips&Media's video IP that will be designed into Chips&Media’s customer chipsets to deliver high performance video applications on low power consumer multimedia devices. Some of the industry’s largest semiconductor and mobile device manufacturers rely on Chips&Media technology to efficiently playback video content.

"We are thrilled to be able to include the Sorenson Spark decoder in our video technology offering," said Steve Kim, president and CEO at Chips&Media. "Our end customers have been asking us for a hardware optimized implementation of the Sorenson Spark video decoder. We are now positioned to offer this to our customers who will have access to the millions of videos on the Internet that can only be played back using the Sorenson Spark decoder."

"Our Sorenson Spark decoder is the ideal addition to Chips&Media's optimized silicon IP offering," said Peter Csathy, president and CEO of Sorenson Media. "This partnership is the latest in a series of licensees who see the Sorenson Spark decoder as a necessary part of mobile phones and other multimedia devices. With Chips&Media’s large customer base of semi-conductor manufacturers, even more consumers will have access to the widest and deepest base of online video content."

Real-Time Streaming to Smartphones Now Available

The ability to delivery real-time streaming videos to Smartphones is now available. If you would like to set-up your own streaming server to serve videos for mobile devices, you can do it. You have the option to delivery real-time streaming videos in .3gp, .3g2 and .MP4 flavors for today's Smartphones. You can utilize Apple's QuickTime Streaming Server and QTSS Publisher for providing On-demand streams as well as 24/7 live streaming channels. Tools such as Telestream's Episode, QuickTime Pro or Sorenson Squeeze can be used for encoding your videos for mobile devices. The key for viewing real-time streaming content is to use one of the latest Smartphones. Many of these devices allow you to click on .3gp, .3g2 and .mp4 links on a web page to view your streaming videos. A lot of regular cell phones also support streaming media.

I like the following Smartphones for real-time streaming:

Blackberry Curve
Blackberry Storm
HTC - Touch Pro
Samsung Omnia

RipCode Announces Availability of On-Demand Transcoding Tool

RipCode today announced the availability of on-demand video transcoding for the holiday season's must have video-enabled phones including the Apple iPhone, T-Mobile G1, RIM BlackBerry Bold and BlackBerry Storm all of which are now available in stores.

The coupling of On-Demand Transcoding -- a game-changing video delivery technology pioneered by RipCode with the Apple iPhone, T-Mobile G1, RIM BlackBerry Bold and BlackBerry Storm is an industry first. On-Demand Transcoding enables content owners and operators to quickly and cost-effectively scale multi-media delivery by transcoding video content only when requested, while at the same time progressively downloading or streaming to end user devices. An appliance-based, infrastructure solution, RipCode extends video delivery across multiple channels, without requiring specialized handset applications or video players, and without the need to pre-transcode content for each device.

"As the holiday buying season kicks off next week, these are the phones making people's wish lists," said Brendon Mills, RipCode CEO. "As these popular video-enabled devices increasingly penetrate the market, content aggregators and operators will offer solutions that leverage the devices' video attributes and larger screen real estate to extend content and brand value to mobile customers."

An inherent feature of RipCode's On-Demand Transcoding technology is the ability to support ad insertion and integration with ad networks through an open API, enabling operators to monetize the delivery of on-demand video content. Additionally, RipCode's Client Detection Application which accurately identifies the characteristics of a variety of Internet-enabled devices and handsets -- lets operators seamlessly optimize video delivery or image re-sizing for the mobile market.