Move Networks

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1 Overview
2 History
3 Technology
4 Services
5 Investors
6 Customers
7 Awards
8 References

[edit] Overview

Move Networks is a provider of video streaming technology and services. Headquartered in American Fork, Utah, Move Networks also has offices in California, Michigan, and New York, with plans ^[1] to open offices in Latin America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific in 2008. Move Networks employs approximately 175 people.

Move Networks views itself as a whitebox solution for publishers because it does not promote its own brand as it streams video for publishers. It seeks to build the reputation of its customers by providing viewers a “high-quality viewing experience.” ^[2] ^[3]

[edit] History

Originally called XLON Technologies, the company began development and testing in 2000. Drew Major, co-founder of Novell and now chairman of Move, and John Edwards, now CEO of Move, worked together with several others and invented Simulcoding and adaptive streaming (see Technology section below). In September 2006 XLON Technologies was incorporated as Move Networks and began streaming television programming online.

The driving force behind the development of adaptive streaming was the desire to deliver video over the Internet with higher quality and with less aggravation to viewers. In a July 2007 interview with Technometria, Drew Major spoke about the problems with Internet video delivery that motivated Move’s development. He said:

We were originally focused on delivering caches and doing low cost distribution of large objects over the Internet. At the time, I kept thinking they’d fix Internet protocols and streaming would take off. And then if streaming took off, there’d be need for low-cost streaming of both data. And we had an architecture, a different way of content distribution.
But that strategy wasn’t working, and I was funding Move and excited about the potential. It hit me hard that video delivery over the Internet still didn’t work good enough and wasn’t scalable. I kept thinking someone would fix it with Internet protocols. You had RTP/RTSP, but it had problems going over UDP. You had firewalls, so they were putting everything on TCP. Then everything was progressive download—a simple approach, but it had problems with TCP, with hiccups, deployment issues. That was screwing up the business—we were gonna deliver video, but no one had a method of reliably delivering video over the Internet. The Internet occasionally slows down, you lose packets. . . . That’s why video wasn’t working and why it used a download model to get around the problem. But people want to see things live, not download.
So the protocols weren’t solving the problem, and it meant low quality. I realized if no one else was gonna solve it, we’d solve it. ^[4]

After inventing a new way of streaming video over the Internet, Move Networks began testing its services by streaming television programming for nearby Brigham Young University’s BYU.tv. In October 2006 Move launched video streaming for its first major customers, FOX and Televisa. Implementations followed for the CW (January 2007), ABC (March 2007), ESPN (July 2007), and Discovery Communications (August 2007). Each publisher must develop its own strategy for presenting and monetizing its content, using Move Networks’ platform of video publishing services.

[edit] Technology

Move Networks’ proprietary technology has two main parts: Simulcoding^[5] and adaptive streaming^[6].

Simulcoding. Move Networks’ protocol divides large video files into many small files that Move calls streamlets.^[7] Each streamlet is a multi-second video segment. Servers process each streamlet and apply the publisher-determined parameters (bit rate, frame size, frame rate, codec type, constant or variable bit rate, 1-pass or 2-pass encoding, etc.), bit rate by bit rate. There are many versions of each streamlet, each version with a different bit rate (to be used in adaptive streaming; see below).

Encoded streamlets are stored on standard HTTP Web servers (a difference from most streaming providers who store video files on media servers).

Adaptive Streaming. When an Internet user requests a video (which is done using a standard HTTP “GET” request), streamlets are transferred over the Internet from the origin Web server to the client's Web browser or client application where they are reassembled in the correct order. The delivery protocol uses multiple TCP sessions for improved reliability of the transmission and to increase the total carrying capacity during each unit of time.

A unique characteristic of Move’s adaptive streaming is its ability to adapt to the available bandwidth on each viewer’s Internet connection at all times during the stream.^[8]^[9] Adaptive streaming can avoid buffering by adjusting image quality to fit a viewer’s available bandwidth. This is possible because there is a set of streamlets for each bit rate specified in the publisher’s profile. As the client protocol needs to upshift or downshift the bit rate, the correct time-indexed streamlet from the appropriate bit rate set is retrieved from the server. There is a streamlet of equal play length for every bit rate specified in the profile. Therefore, the player can easily interchange bit rates by retrieving the appropriate time-indexed streamlet from the desired bit rate pool. Thus, bit rates can change quickly and seamlessly as network conditions fluctuate, and because each streamlet is a small segment of video, seeking and starting can happen quickly (within the time length of one individual streamlet).

[edit] Services

The Move Networks publishing system^[10] includes the following services:

Move Simulcode. Divides video content into segments called streamlets and encodes them for multiple bandwidths (dial-up, broadband, wireless) and platforms (computers, television, mobile). Move Simulcode uses a dual-pass variable bit rate encode for live and on-demand streams.

Move Adaptive Stream. Delivers encoded streamlets from a Web server where they’ve been stored to the client (the Move plugin) for viewing. Move Adaptive Stream relies on the intelligent client to tell it which bit rate of streamlets to retrieve and deliver from the Web server.

Move Publish. Content management system where publishers upload, edit, and organize their video offerings. Move Publish is constantly updated and individualized for each publisher.

Move Media Player. Move’s stage for viewing video online. Move Media Player is built individually for each publisher to fit their strategy.

Move Monetize. Move’s reporting and analytics. Move Monetize reports on actual viewing behavior and is designed to give publishers business intelligence to assist in making decisions for ad placement, broadcasting schedules, and video quality.

[edit] Investors

In April 2008 Move Networks completed its third round of investment funding, bringing its investment total to $67.3 million.^[11] Move’s investors include the following media, Internet, and investment companies:

Benchmark Capital
Cisco Systems
Comcast Interactive Media
Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
Steamboat Ventures
Televisa

[edit] Customers

Fox Broadcasting Company (October 2006)
Televisa (October 2006)
the CW (January 2007)
ABC (March 2007)
ESPN (July 2007)
Discovery Communications (August 2007)
Oprah (February 2008)
PluggedIn (April 2008)

[edit] Awards

Red Herring 100, May 2007^[12]
OnHollywood 100, May 2007^[13]
Red Herring Global 100, November 2007^[14]
OnMedia 100, January 2008^[15]
TechCrunch Finalist, January 2008^[16]
Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist (John Edwards), April 2008^[17]