Media processing technology drives profit into content delivery

Patrick Lopez, Chief Marketing Officer explains that Montreal-based Vantrix has deep roots in the technologies necessary to deliver optimal quality content over networks that don’t always present optimal connectivity options. Vantrix, a media processing company, specializes in delivering any content, from any source to any device. That expertise began with the pioneering development of speech and audio codecs through Sipro Lab Telecom and VoiceAge Corporation and is now focused on the challenges of multimedia technologies.

From a technology standpoint Vantrix portrays an impressive ability in addressing the myriad of media types, sources, networks and devices that exist or are emerging in today’s 3 screen market. Lopez describes a hypothetical experience that is enabled by this technology with a simple example. Imagine watching a movie delivered by IPTV in the comfort of your home. You pause the movie and later on from the screen of your 3G or 4G smartphone you pick up the movie where you left off but this time you’re in a cab, on your way to the airport for business trip. Upon arrival at your destination you are afforded some rest time at your hotel and decide that you’ll once again pick up watching your movie using your laptop and a wireless connection. While the example may seem hypothetical, the possibility is quite real.

The solution provided by Vantrix that supports such user experiences includes capabilities for over 35,000 codec combinations. It is a client-less, powerful Linux-based software solution that can address some 14,000 different devices as native end-points. The single platform, single architecture server performs the 3 critical functions - capture, optimize and deliver. When new devices are released, profiles are shared through a co-operative. As the quality of a network connection changes, content encoding is adjusted to provide the best possible user experience. Lopez gave me a brief but impressive demo using a smartphone over the highly contended and largely unpredictable bandwidth of a 3G connection at CTIA Wireless 2009. The full motion content of the demo was delivered with almost imperceptible impact to quality as the connection speed dropped from over a 1 Mb/s to just a couple of hundred kb/s and back again.

Any content, any source, any where is an interesting technology proposition. Beyond the technology itself what is compelling are the business opportunities associated with content aggregation. Whether the source is live TV, MMS or even user generated content, network operators and providers have the ability to insert ads, banners, branding and widgets when delivering to wireless, cable and broadband connected subscribers. Additional features such as custom or personalized content, voting and access control are also enabled.

Specialty content and video on demand when combined with an ecosystem of services such as ad insertion provide the full complement of potential that’s enabled by the power of this technology. Summarizing the opportunity that he sees, Lopez offers that “premium content revenue comes from the best user experiences.” He also points out that trends for success come from exploiting the Long Tail of content and service.