Video Optimization Company Conviva Raises $15M: Is There Enough Of A Market For These Services?

This morning, California based Conviva, a video quality optimization and analytics platform, announced a series D round of funding totaling $15M, lead by Time Warner Investments. Founded in 2006 as Rinera Networks, the company changed their name to Conviva in 2008 shortly before Darren Feher, former CTO of NBC Universal took over as CEO of the company.

Apple patents touchscreen TV remote control… is a smart TV up next?

Apple’s inexorable march toward delivering an HD television to the market took another step forward with the report that the company has filed a new patent for a touchscreen remote control designed to reduce the confusion and clutter of traditional remotes. Apple Insider said the patent also shows the remote working with other devices like a television, video players, a stereo, a “smart home” control system and even a Mac. Apple has been rumored to be in the process of developing a smart TV, a play that many analysts believe would turn into a massive business for the company. Article

Videoplaza lands $12 million in Series B funding round

Ad-management platform Videoplaza has received $12 million in Series B funding to accelerate its global expansion, increase R&D and focus on helping client “build a sustainable business in a fast changing and ever more fragmented world.” The funding came from Qualcomm Ventures and Innovacom, and follows on the heels of what Videoplaza said was a strong 2011, during which it grew its international client base and delivered five times greater ad serving volumes in the last year. The London-based company has opened new offices in Madrid, Berlin and Singapore, and serves a client base across 17 markets worldwide. Videoplaza CEO Sorosh Tavakoli said that while IP-delivered TV presents multiple opportunities for media owners to increase distribution, reach and revenues, device fragmentation and developing monetization policies across multiple platforms present a unique set of challenges that require a technical infrastructure to support them as they implement a device agnostic approach. Videoplaza’s technology platform delivers advertising on all leading devices and services including Flash, Silverlight, HTML5, iOS devices, Android, Sony Playstation, Samsung Smart TVs and closed IPTV environments etc. The company said it expects more than half of its traffic to come from non-PC devices by 2013.

BSkyB launching streaming service to rival Netflix in UK

When Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) rolled out its streaming service in the United Kingdom and Ireland earlier this year, it already was facing some competition. Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), in the form of LoveFilm, already had a toehold in the U.K., and broadcaster BBC had an established digital platform already in place. Now, satellite-TV operator BSkyB has thrown its hat into the ring and is gearing up to go toe-to-toe with Netflix with its own streaming movie service that also will include its existing Sky Movies, Sky Sports and entertainment portfolio. Unlike Dish Network (Nasdaq: DISH)’s Blockbuster streaming service, BSkyB says it plans to offer the service outside its 10-million subscriber base with no contract and “a wide variety of pricing options.” The move is aimed at reducing the impact over-the-top services like Netflix and Lovefilm are having on BSkyB, which added just 40,000 new subs in the most recent quarter, 19,000 less than analysts had anticipated, and nowhere near the 140,000 new subs it had in the same period a year ago.

Ooyala partners with nuvoTV to deliver viewers multi-platform, social experience

NuvoTV, an English-language cable TV network that target bi-cultural Latinos, is using Ooyala to power its marketing campaign across multiple devices and social TV experiences. Ooyala powers season premiere of nuvoTV’s hit reality show Operation: Osmin on Facebook. (Photo: Business Wire) Earlier this month, nuvoTV delivered the first-ever multi-platform launch of a season premiere both on-air and on Facebook with the first episode of the new season of Operation: Osmin . The network used an interactive Facebook app and embedded player developed by Ooyala, substantially increasing its viewership for the season two premiere of the reality TV show.

Netflix Q4 results prompts surge in stock price

Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX)’s stock price surged nearly 18 percent in after-hours trading following fourth quarter results and a first quarter outlook Wednesday that beat the low expectations analysts had set for the company. The streaming company reported earnings of $41 million, or 73 cents a share, down 14 percent from a year ago, when it earned $47.1 million, or 87 cents a share. The company reported revenue of $876 million, am increase of 47 percent over a year ago. Analysts had expected earnings of 54 cents a share and revenue of $857.3 million

Streaming Media West Conference Videos From LA Now Online

All sessions from the Streaming Media West 2011 show in LA this past November are now online and available for on-demand viewing at www.streamingmedia.com/videos You may re-purpose these videos as you wish. Due to some technical issues we had with the recordings, one session entitled, “Making a Living on YouTube” was not able to be archived and two of the…

Cook: Apple TV sales accelerated in quarter, but still a hobby

During Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL)’s earnings call this week, CEO Tim Cook, while not talking directly about the company’s plans for its strategy for the living room, did say that the company’s connected device, Apple TV, was “doing actually very well.” “In last fiscal year that ended in September, we sold a bit above 2.8 million units. And just in the past quarter–the December quarter–we set a new quarterly record for Apple TV with over 1.4 million (units).” But, Cook pointed out in a response to Piper Jaffrey analyst Gene Munster, “if you dollarize this in revenues, we still classify this as a hobby. However, we continue to add things to it…We continue to pull the string to see where it takes us.” The current Apple TV connected device runs on the same processing chip as the original iPad and the iPhone 4; when, and if, it gets an upgrade, may be a sign that Apple has decided to move beyond the hobby stage with it.

Encoding.com integrates Vid.ly, creates ‘future proof’ encoding

Cloud-based Encoding.com has integrated its Vid.ly universal video platform into its video encoding workflow, accessed through a preset within the Web, Watch Folder and API interfaces. Selecting the Vid.ly preset automatically transcodes the source video into 24 different video formats. Vid.ly creates a short URL and the embed code for the Vid.ly-hosted video. The company, which rolled out a beta version of Vid.ly just a year ago, said the platform automatically transcodes video into all of the HTML5 formats, detects the browser and delivers the correct video format. Vid.ly prepares video for both iPad and iPhone adaptive bitrate stream to dynamically serve the bitrate most appropriate to the bandwidth of the requesting device.

Wanted: Pre-Conference Workshop Presenters For Streaming Media East Show

On Monday May 14th, the day before the Streaming Media East show kicks off, we have four workshops that provide hands-on instructional classes. All workshops are three hours in length and I currently have two workshops confirmed on the topics of “Planning Online Video Deployment for HTML5 and Flash” and “Encoding for Flash, Mobile, and HTML5″.

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