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Cisco, Comcast bust a Move - April 14, 2008

Media Wonk is in Vegas at the NAB Show this week and if news doesn't stop breaking in the world outside he may have to bail and get back to the office. First Blockbuster, now this: Cisco and Comcast Interactive Media and Televisa are part of a whopping $46 million Series C funding round raised by Move Networks, the video-streaming services provider that lists among its clients ABC, Fox, Discovery and Televisa.

Move uses a proprietary technology it calls Adaptive Streaming, which breaks video streams into millions of mini "streamlets" and caches them around the web. The system then monitors the end-user's broadband connection for fluctuations in available bandwidth and adjusts the streaming speed accordingly. The bottom line, according to Move, is "to cost-effectively and reliably deliver live and on-demand HD quality programming to millions of people without the buffering, stalling, and low-quality viewing experiences common with competing technologies."

The investments by Comcast and Cisco, along with the possibility of integrating Move's technology into their routers and other network infrastructure, could give Move an inside track against potential competitors for delivering video over the web.

One potential competitor: Swarmcast,  which is here at the show, albeit keeping a low profile. The company claims to use a different technology to achieve the same scalable, bandwidth-responsive effect but on an open platform. Move's system is essentially a proprietary, end-to-end system that doesn't play well with other service providers' offerings.

Swarmcast reps were just doing show-and-tell at NAB, at the Limelight Networks booth (a partner), but Media Wonk was promised an on-the-record interview with founder/CEO Justin Chapweske soon. So more to come. But the battle to accelerate HD streaming over the web is joined.
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