This year was special for RipCode – marking our company’s entry into the high growth Chinese market – where media mania is visible at every turn. Home to nearly 1.4 billion people, China’s tech-savvy youths are avid consumers of online video content. With mobile devices proliferating daily, and 3G services imminent, China will drive one of the largest market expansions in wireless history.  And transcoding will figure prominently in the mix.  According to IE Research and Markets Corp, mobile subscribers in China will exceed 1.2 billion by 2013, double that of 2008.

Thanks to RipCode’s broadcast partner Century Sage Scientific (CSS Group), Transactional Transcoding created quite a buzz at BIRTV. Home to some 400-plus exhibitors and 50,000 attendees, “New Media” was all the rage, and RipCode was no exception. Rows-deep, people waited turns to hear the Transaction Transcoding story and why RipCode’s solution is about more than just the transcoder, but about the total solution – from ingest to optimized encode to streaming to monetization. On any device. Anytime. Anywhere.

Featured during a 30-minute segment on CCTV.com (Mandarin only), CSS VP of Marketing Alex So described the three-screen transformation and how broadcasters must adapt to the changing market while a new wave of devices mark a fundamental shift in media consumption. Popular sites like Todou and Youku are fast becoming the ‘YouTubes’ of China – driving video into the mainstream. And while China’s CMMB standard for linear broadcast transmission to mobile is struggling to gain traction, ‘on demand’ content is growing rapidly, giving consumers the content they want when they want it.

Bottom line, no matter whether you’re in Asia, EMEA, or the Americas, RipCode’s Transactional transcoding message is gaining traction – and BIRTV affirmed that using RipCode for video transcoding and delivery creates an opportunity to quickly and cost-effectively expand your content across the three screen domain, and keep subscribers loyal to your brand.

RipCode would like to thank the CSS Group for the opportunity to partner in this exciting market. Expect exciting things to come.

Scenes from the show…

 RipCode TransAct Transcoders powering live broadcast and video-on-demand with dynamic ad insertion to mobile devices…

 Prospects line up to view Transactional Transcoding in action (see related video)…

Transactional Transcoding in Mandarin…

In good company, RipCode shares the spotlight with some of the top names in broadcast…

Greg Lowitz
EVP Sales & Business Development
RipCode, Inc.

• Commercial Internet video traffic will increase 5X by 2012
• User-generated video content will increase 3X by 2012
• 2/3 of all mobile traffic will be video by 2013
• 14.3 billion online videos were viewed by U.S. Internet users during December, 2008 alone

The fascination with being able to view both professional and user-generated entertainment content on Internet and mobile devices will not taper any time soon, but there is equal if not higher demand for instant access to a staggering volume of educational video, instructional video, enterprise sales and marketing video and surveillance video – by public, private and government constituents.

In the video below, we take a look at the different levels of video content - premium, amateur and reference - and how they impact distribution and monetization strategies.

Transactional Transcoding, a new whitepaper from IDC, examines how transcoding is becoming the linchpin in the delivery of evolving video services for a multitude of video-enabled viewing platforms.  As an enabler of increasingly complex content distribution, transcoding is moving beyond legacy file-to-file approaches to become real-time, transactional and network-aware. In addressing the emergence of next generation transcoding, the IDC whitepaper explains how the technology is evolving to support burgeoning demand for online and mobile video - especially in light of content explosion, device expansion, network strain and the need for effective monetization.

IDC believes that transcoding must evolve to include transaction-based platforms that can tailor video content and video advertising for a particular device, delivery channel and business model as well as an  individual viewer — all on-the-fly — to accelerate, simplify, scale and reduce the costs of delivering ‘any content, anytime, to anyplace’.

If you’re interested in learning more about Transactional Transcoding, you can download the new IDC whitepaper from the RipCode website or send us an email.

However, as part of our commitment to providing our customers a holistic approach to video transcoding, today at CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas, I’m pleased to introduce the availability of the RipCode TransAct Monetizer. The TransAct Monetizer is specifically designed to enable the monetization of video content. As an integrated component of RipCode’s TransAct Platform, video assets can be seamlessly and dynamically inserted across the ‘three-screen’ domain as part of a real-time transcoding transaction.

TransAct Monetizer is able to dynamically stitch device-optimized pre- or post-roll video with any requested video asset.   By transcoding video ads on-demand, advertisers have the flexibility to provide unique ads based on the video content that a viewer requests, as well as the viewer profile, viewer location, time of view, and experience quality – all of which require a transcoded, dynamic ad insertion capability to maximize relevancy and increase CPM.

For more information about TransAct Monetizer, check out the video below, stop by our booth at CTIA - #7062, or email us.

Here at RipCode, we continue to evolve and improve our technology and solutions to stay ahead of our customer’s video delivery needs.  So it shouldn’t come as a big surprise then when I tell you that this transactional transcoding model I’ve talked about is now available from RipCode.  Tomorrow at CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas, we’ll be introducing the RipCode TransAct Platform.

The TransAct Platform enables key video delivery elements to occur as a transparent, real-time transaction including:
-    Video device and capability discovery
-    Selection of optimal transcode workflows
-    Dynamic, relevant ad insertion
-    Network-aware resource availability
-    Open interoperability with billing, content management systems and ad networks

In the video below I go into more detail about the benefits of the RipCode TransAct Platform. Or for an industry perspective on the transactional transcoding model, a new whitepaper from IDC is available from the RipCode website, I hope you’ll check it out.

We understand that considering transcoding as a real-time transaction will require a shift in the way you normally think about transcoding, so if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reply to this post or send us an email.

And in this time, video delivery obstacles that our customers are contending with have become more magnified. Content owners, video delivery platforms, ad networks, mobile operators – everyone in the video delivery value chain are facing increasing video distribution challenges including:
-    How to distribute an overwhelming amount of video content…
-    Over an increasing number of video viewing devices…
-    While monetizing video assets…
-    Preserving high quality user experience…
-    And account for constrained and fluctuating network bandwidth.

Here at RipCode, we realize that our customers require more than just a box to move files from one format to another.  They need a big picture solution to help them deal with all of the components of video delivery.  We understand that in order for video delivery to scale, transcoding can no longer be an independent process performed in an offline environment.  Transcoding must evolve to a real-time transaction.

In the video below, I talk in more detail about today’s video delivery challenges and why at RipCode, we believe that transactional-based video transcoding will play a vital role in the market evolution of video delivery.

I’m Neal Hartsell, vice president of Marketing for RipCode, and a new voice on the RipCode blog.  I’m a fairly recent addition to the RipCode team and my first chance to tell the RipCode story in front of a large group came last month when RipCode had the prestigious opportunity to present to cable industry executives as part of the Innovation Showcase at the 2009 CableLabs Conference in Colorado Springs. For those that may not know, the focus of CableLabs is to showcase the latest in content and services that operators may employ to serve cable customers. As I talked with industry executives at the show, it became clear to me that broadband service providers are paying close attention to the growing number of consumers watching TV shows online.  As consumer’s desire for ‘time shifted’ video content increases, cable and broadband operators are looking for ways to retain control of their customer base by extending their brand to Web and mobile domains, while increasing revenue opportunities in the new Internet and mobile media markets.  The RipCode transcoding story seemed to resonate with the cable operators that I talked to as a viable solution for:

• extending broadcast content to desktop and mobile devices
• extending the cable brand to alternative viewing models
• capitalizing on Internet and mobile advertising revenue

To learn more, check out the video from RipCode’s Innovation Showcase presentation.

Available today, MySpace has launched their MySpace Mobile video service.  Using RipCode’s On-Demand Transcoding technology, MySpace Mobile users across the globe will now be able to enjoy MySpace video content from their video enabled mobile devices.

In choosing RipCode, MySpace made a clear choice about the future direction of their transcoding environment.  Rather than adopting legacy pre-transcoding methods, their decision to utilize RipCode’s On-Demand Transcoding technology helps them achieve a more efficient, effective and eco-friendly method for extending video to the MySpace mobile community.

We’ve talked about this in the past, but it’s worth mentioning again. As the volume of video grows and the number of mobile devices supporting video continues to expand, companies have to find alternative solutions to deliver content to their customers across multiple screens. MySpace’s decision is proof that market leaders are embracing change in traditional transcoding methodologies and looking for smarter, more scalable solutions to manage mobile video growth.

If you have a MySpace account and have a mobile device that supports streaming video, check out the new MySpace Mobile video service and let us know what you think:

1. From your mobile device, go to m.myspace.com
2. Login to your MySpace profile
3. If you have videos loaded to your online profile, you will see a My Videos link on the user homepage.  Click on the My Videos link
4. On the Videos page, select Uploaded or Favorite videos
5. Select video by clicking on View
6. On Video Details page, click Play Video

Or, for a quick tour of the new MySpace mobile video service, check out this short video.

My Videos on MySpace Mobile website

Many of RipCode’s blog readers are familiar with our On-Demand Transcoding solution.  But what you may not know is that in addition to supporting RTSP streaming of on-demand content for the most popular video-enabled devices — like the Storm, Bold and Android – we also support progressive download of on-demand video content for the Apple iPhone.  All without the need for special client-side players or applications, and without pre-transcoding content.

For aggregators and operators looking to extend their video libraries to these popular devices, our sales team will be conducting onsite, on-demand transcoding demos for this season’s must-have mobile devices.  If you’re interested in learning about demos in your area, let us know.

This award recognizes outstanding innovation and unique accomplishments through potential breakthrough technology, processes or services within the technology and communications industry, for companies with less than 100 employees.   RipCode was one of four finalists for the award.

This award is really a reflection of the tremendous accomplishments that all our employees have made towards building RipCode to the company it is today.   My thanks to everyone for their continued hard work and dedication.