"4phun" <vic.healey@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:58b7a1e5-0ea5-4b08-aef3-343d6771cc07@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
The iPhone's Challenge to Mobile Video
http://www.webvideouniverse.com/dist...le.php/3762111
(If you can't beat them with flash, join them with high-bitrate
streaming HD on 3G!)
July 29, 2008
By Troy Dreier
The Apple iPhone is a major player in the mobile Internet space, but
the iPhone still doesn't support Flash, which means it can't display
most of the video available online. What's a hardworking video site to
do?
Nothing. Why change for them assholes. (apple)
Until the folks in Cupertino decide to allow the iPhone's Safari
browser to display Flash content, online video sites really only have
one option if they want to reach iPhone users: re-encode their entire
library in a compatible format.
That's what how-to site MonkeySee.com did with its 8,000 multi-segment
titles. Just this week it made its entire library available to iPhone
users in high-bitrate streaming HD.
Wow, One website. But try to stream that content to iPhone edge users.
That might sound like a lot of work, but according to Greg Letourneau,
the CEO of Knowlera Media (parent company to MonkeySee.com), the
site's automation system made it easy.
Automated Assistance
Most of MonkeySee.com's content is produced in-house, with full HD
versions of each video stored on the company's RAID drive. An
automated system takes over from there, adding bumpers, trailers, and
watermarks.
Getting that automated system to return to the HD source files and
create new iPhone-friendly versions of the videos wasn't a problem
said Letourneau. The resulting videos are big—900kbps mv4 files—but
the iPhone's new 3G mobile broadband connectivity means they play
without a stutter.
What does the Edge users do ?
"Depending on your network connection, it might take a few seconds for
it to start playing," said Letourneau, but that's all.
If you have a 3G and are able to get the 3G signal.
MonkeySee.com could have create lower-bandwidth versions for the
original iPhone to play over that device's EDGE connection, but
Letourneau said they were never happy with the EDGE experience.
Or the Edge iPhone.
"As far as we know, we're the only how-to-dedicated video site that
permits you to view videos on the iPhone 3G," said Letourneau.
(Wrong I have several video sites I now visit for automated iPhone
video streaming, not counting YouTube.)
An iPhone World
Why worry so much about compatibility with one mobile device, when
there are so many on the market? Letourneau said MonkeySee.com views
the iPhone as extremely important to its business.
Besides the iPhone 3G's dramatic sales figures—one million units sold
the first weekend alone—the iPhone offers a great way to view
instructional videos.
"For how-to content, it's really quite handy for a variety of things,"
Letourneau said. Need to fix a leaky pipe under the sink or need help
barbecuing in the backyard? It's hard to bring your computer there,
but easy to bring an iPhone.
Streaming all that free HD video is costly, but Letourneau isn't
worried about that yet. MonkeySee.com launched this January and is
still working on building an audience. The site will begin serving ads
soon, and he's confident that ad revenue will cover the bandwidth
costs.
To experience the site's high-quality how-to videos for yourself,
point your iPhone or computer to MonkeySee.com.
The iPhone's Challenge to Mobile Video 8,000 more multi-segmenttitles converted to iPhone HD
Linear Mode
