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Akamai delivers HD trailers to the Cannes Film Festival website
Some of the Engadget HD crew religiously plug their ears and shut their eyes tight during movie trailers, in hopes of avoiding any spoilers. The beautiful people at the Cannes Film Festival can't really follow this strategy for two reasons. First, it would end up as National Enquirer cover material; second, they actually rely on trailers to help them decide which flicks to sit in on. Nothing spoils the director's intent -- or gets viewers to click away -- faster than stuttering, pixelated video, so Akamai is promising to deliver the trailers to the festival website in 720p that flows as smoothly as the french Riviera; our own visits to the site seem to confirm that Akamai is holding true to its word. The festival is almost over, but you can still access content from throughout the festival on the website.
Akamai supports dynamic HD streaming on Adobe Flash, starting with Epix
Tucked away in Akamai's announcement of dynamic streaming capabilities and other tweaks to go along with its support for Adobe Flash Media Server 3.5 was the news that Epix -- the new joint venture from Viacom / Lionsgate / MGM launching first online then on cable & satellite near you as a new movie channel -- will be among the first to take advantage. We're the ability to seamlessly switch between HD and lower-quality feeds as bandwidth and CPU power demands will be appreciated by viewers but it's still not even clear what the new venture's website will even be, with epix.com still pointing to this. That's sure to be cleared up by launch (still slated for later this month) right?
Akamai sees more publishers switching to HD video online
Sure Akamai sponsored a new IDC whitepaper finding smooth video and high resolution is important to most online audiences -- services it is conveniently positioned to help provide -- but that doesn't mean the results are wrong. Last year a similarly self promotional survey found 75% or broadcasters planning HD online and in the last twelve months we've had an explosion of HD on the net, from the Olympics and NCAA Championships to Netflix, Amazon, MLB and YouTube to 1080p from DirecTV, DISH and VUDU. Key results of the 2009 analysis? Publishers need HD streaming to keep up with the competition, video quality is important, and high definition means users will stick around longer. Notable in its absence is the complaint many have about downloads and streams, no high quality / surround audio. Just an idea for the 2010 survey guys.
Ascent Media, Akamai & Sofatronic delivering end-to-end BD-Live solution
There's a lot to making a BD-Live enhanced movie go (just ask the people behind Iron Man), so Ascent Media's coordinating a three pronged approach to get connected discs out and working amongst the people. Sofatronic's Kaleidoscope tech is the backbone for developing interactive Blu-ray tech, while Akamai's network makes sure servers don't melt on day 1, and Ascent Media's Blink Digital group provides creative services to find implementations that appeal to viewers. Sounds great in theory, show us something we haven't seen before and make it work smoothly, then we'll be impressed.
Microsoft's Silverlight to get adaptive streaming boost from Akamai
Microsoft is hoping to spread the HD to more than its Xbox 360, and has partnered up with Akamai to demo its latest combination of technologies that will send 720p content smoothly over the internet. A beta release of the Silverlight player plus Akamai's AdaptiveEdge Streaming will debut in early 2009, but the aim is as old as the hills -- deliver smooth (or at least, smoothly degrading) HD video to internet viewers with standard web servers, as opposed to dedicated video streaming servers. The videos will stream at 720p and maintain a 24fps minimum, eating up 2 - 6 Mbps in the process, all the while adapting the transmission based on the quality of the connection. Curious? There's a demo link in the source below, so get some post-Olympics use out of that Silverlight plugin you installed this summer!
Akamai knows (hopes) 75% of broadcasters are taking HD online
With all the HD going online recently, a release claiming that 75% of "leading broadcasts" plan to deliver high definition via the internet in the next 24 months isn't surprising -- but we'll at least have to consider the source. Delivered by Akamai, a company in the business of providing the network to deliver all that high bandwidth video, the survey results also showed that 80 percent of those who plan to offer HD video, either already do, or will within the next year so don't expect the 'net to be getting less crowded any time soon. The company claims it can reliably deliver bitrates of up to 6 Mbps -- and expects TV and movie producers to take advantage of that quickly. Whatever, as long as we can catch replays of The Office, Lost, Battlestar Galactica and of course Airwolf even when away from home, we'll be happy.
Peering Inside: Linden Lab IPO = Epic Fail
No, you've not missed an announcement of an upcoming IPO. We're just looking at what it would mean if you did. There's been talk for years about Linden Lab taking the company through IPO (Initial Public Offering) and going public. Given the vision and history of the company, and the overall direction of the business, an IPO would more or less signal an epic failure to deliver.
Akamai launches HD content website
Akamai has launched a "proof of concept" portal for demonstrating online HD content. The site shows off their edge delivery technologies designed around HD streaming. Anyone can try out the site, but you'll need some healthy bandwidth to get the full experience. Recommended specs include 7.5Mbps for the 720 feeds, 13.5Mbps for the 1080; if your connection doesn't meet spec, expect hitches. It's a tantalizing view of the future, but those bandwidth requirements are steep! Still, we're on board with Akamai's reasons for putting this site up, especially "engage audiences with higher quality video experiences" and "show industry support and leadership around the move toward high-definition video." We've seen it and we want it, so the only question left is when will the industry players let us get it?
Akamai readying infrastructure for HD Internet delivery
Akamai is making some changes to its content distribution network (CDN) which are meant to facilitate the distribution of long-form HD content over the internet. It's more than just a simple bump up in Akamai's already huge capacity, and has enhancements designed around delivery of "bandwidth-intensive" content. Design criteria include support for files larger than 2 GB, VC-1 and MPEG-4 codecs, and 720i/1080i/1080p resolutions, which are some pretty lofty and HD-worthy specs. The goal is to provide 100-Tb/s bandwidth (that's Terabit!) using an edge-network architecture, which will hopefully keep end users happy with fast downloads and and local broadband providers happy with less traffic going through their own gateways. Sadly, no specific rollout dates are given.