INTERNET
B2B video streaming service is launched
09-10-2000
by Paul Drury
A new business-to-business (B2B) video streaming service has been launched by UK post-production company VTR and Irish on-line broadcast facilities provider Servecast.
The new service, Clipstream, will utilise the USD40 million pan-European infrastructure just announced by Servecast. This new digital network will enable high-speed delivery of broadband quality images.
The first player-agnostic pan-European infrastructure dedicated solely to the delivery of streaming video and audio content, it is based on a series of powerful servers across Europe, linked by a high-speed backbone to form a high capacity network.
Clipstream is aimed at advertising agencies, film companies, TV and film libraries and educational bodies accessing materials for teaching purposes. It will begin trading in November.
The project has been under development for a year. Under its agreement with Servecast, Clipstream will exclusively supply digitising and encoding of video content to the Irish company, whose investors include Denis O'Brien's Island Capital and Setanta Sports.
"This is the first Internet distribution service specifically aimed at the media industry," VTR managing director John Banks said.
"This is an entirely new business format that will completely transform the way content owners handle their assets," Clipstream managing director Neil Lane said. "We will manage all aspects of their content right through from digitising material, storing the material, video streaming and downloading files, creating and managing the Web sites for internal and external use and dubbing and dispatch of the content."
Customers Clipstream is currently developing services for include VTR Group client MTVNE Broadcast Services, the provider of technical services and developments to MTV Networks Europe.
Established in 1998, Servecast already has operations in London, Dublin, Madrid, Brussels, Stockholm, Amsterdam and Frankfurt and plans to have points of presence (PoPs) in 16 European countries by the first quarter of 2001.
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