Swimming up stream: This part of the industry took a hit along with the stock market and dot.coms, and these makers of streaming products are looking at corporations to re-gain acceptance

Post, March, 2002 by Christine Bunish

"Last year, with the devaluation of the stock market and internet companies, some good business ideas were devalued too," says Geoff Allen, chief executive officer of Anystream (www.anystream.com). "Streaming was more hyped than it should have been, but you can make money with it. Mature businesses are saying, 'Why aren't we using streaming to do this?"

Allen reports that Anystream, a provider of software for automating the production and distribution of streaming media, is experiencing "more activity than we've ever seen. Some large, high-profile applications are among the biggest we've ever done. And three out of four are content revenue-generating operations. We support them by allowing them to take content they already have and put it online." According to Allen, Digital Island's entire streaming production operation is based on Anystream software, and the Anystream products also form the backbone of BT Broadcast Services' streaming efforts.

"We realize we can't push customers to make decision on what's critical to business in this climate," Allen notes, however, "we've identified what existing customers are doing, and we communicate that to similar potential customers. But we recognize we can't really push the market. It's not a matter of re-educating people about streaming but focusing our activities by listening to our customers."

ANYSTREAM: AGILITY WORKGROUP

When Anystream unveiled Agility Workgroup, a modular, scalable product line of streaming automation software, other software solutions were dramatically more expensive and less functional," Allen says. 'We launched with a top-of-the-line product, now Agility Workgroup XE, with everything, and it did very well with early adopters. Pre-NAB 2001, there was a big chasm between ourselves and products like Media Cleaner Pro. So we announced Agility Workgroup SE, with no live input capabilities, and it did very well and continues to do very well.

"We heard later that SE customers were buying a copy of Adobe Premiere and a video capture card for deck control and exporting to SE. So we introduced Workgroup CE with full deck control and full SE functionality. It's become our most popular configuration by far; our number one seller."

Last fall, Anystream introduced Agility 2.0, which added performance enhancements and functionality across the board: Agility Workgroup SE gained folder attendant ,which lets networked clients drag-and-drop media files into a continually monitored folder for automatic processing and distribution. Agility Workgroup XE added live Web-casting capabilities, which also became an option with the other packages.

Prior to NAB 2002, Anystream will announce version 2.1 of Agility Enterprise. Its flagship, open-architecture product used by Fox News, Fox Sports, Weather.com, CNN, NFL Films and others. The new release provides a number of enhancements for broadcasters, including support for native file formats for news producers.

"We've always been a high-performance software company," Allen notes. "Every quarter we see performance and video-quality improvements." He says Anystream supports Microsoft and Packet Video's versions of MPEG-4 and is listening to customers needs for additional format support.

Allen believes the market requires "broader; more modular product offerings. People say many products are too complex, expensive and difficult and don't do enough. Our MO has been to make products broader; more integrated and easier to use."

GRASS VALLEY GROUP: WEBABLE, AQUA

"People who thought they could put a shingle out and turn over millions of dollars on streaming in just months were sadly mistaken," observes Ross Summers, director of business development/Internet for Grass Valley Group (www.grassvalleygroup.com), which is in the process of being acquired by Thomson. "Those who experimented and took big gambles with content, who were undirected and didn't have real sound business plans, took it on the chin. So did people who built infrastructure and facilities to do large-scale encoding and who haven't seen a rush to it.

"But a good, conservatively-run business can make money in streaming," he reports. "The appetite for streaming is growing now, and it's more focused. There's more interest from people in the general business space who are using streaming as a communications or educational vehicle. And we see interest from our broadcast customers and major telcos worldwide."

Since last summer, Grass Valley has been shipping its WebAble tool suite. WebAble features a drag-and-drop method for creating streaming media from the content of a Profile XP Media Platform and assets located by Grass Valley's ContentShare, a software platform for media asset management. It streamlines the process used by broadcasters, video professionals and e-commerce providers to repurpose their Profile high-resolution video content for Webcasting and Web distribution.

"WebAble is intended more for offline use with existing assets," notes Summers. "Customers can play to air with Profile then, with WebAble, take the portion of the content they want to make available over the Internet, cut the clip and convert it to a streaming format."