Vividas Share Discussion Threads

[the analyst] 28/3/2007 17:09

Finally got round to posting the streaming revenue in the header:


Revenue generated from sales of Vividas streaming products:
H1 04/5 - £9k
H2 04/5 - £91k
H1 05/6 - £293k
H2 05/6 - £381k
H1 06/7 - £528k

It's a great start, but far from spectacular. Hopefully it really gear up over H2 06/07 and H1 07/08

Because of the restructuring and abandoning the porn streaming deal, they look to be about six months behind where they intended to be at this stage. They still look easily on course to be profitable before the cash runs out imo, though. Other investors obviously feel the same and hence, the high market cap given the small revenue.

[the analyst] 28/3/2007 17:08

It is sensible to remain sceptical. I'm certainly sceptical about VDS as I am with all my investments - the increases in revenue and contracts go some way to reassure me.

I keep looking for streaming video of quality approaching Vividas, but not found it yet. I read a huge number of blogs claiming to have found great video - one said that flash was as good as vividas, but I looked and it and was, as usual, presented with a half-screen video that stopped to buffer every few seconds.

At some stage one would imagine a competitor will get at least close to the quality of VDS streaming. I'll keep looking for it...

Not sure where the lemmings went.

[littleredrooster] 28/3/2007 16:59

The point that I was making is that it can be difficult to know whose statements can be believed. VDS makes claims about having world-beating technology but it's sensible to be at least slightly sceptical.

Where have the lemmings gone? Was it just a ramping exercise?

[the analyst] 28/3/2007 16:03

"head and shoulders above the competition"

Could well be true - they are thought to have some of the tallest employees in the industry. Sadly, Vividas employees are rumoured to come in at an average of only 5 feet and one inch tall.

That's what you get is you are reared on prime american growth hormone steaks, versus turkey twizzlers...

[littleredrooster] 28/3/2007 15:43

Surely this must be true?



"Clipstream™ is head and shoulders above the competition. It is already in mainstream use on the US, and this deal will deliver the same benefits to European clients that their US counterparts have been enjoying for some time."
Bob Jull
Chairman
Servecast

[the analyst] 28/3/2007 13:03

Another review of VON. Once again, Vividas gets mentioned




"Internet Video's Scale Scare

MARCH 23, 2007

Major League Baseball Advanced Media LP, which handles baseball's online video and also does consulting jobs, helped stream March Madness video for CBS's site last year, reaching 313,000 users. That's a lot, but it's just a "quaint business" compared with the potential audience of millions that sports leagues hope to capture, says Bob Bowman, MLBAM's CEO.

Speaking at the conference here, Bowman described how MLB has built up experience with live streaming video since 2002. The 20 games provided online that year showed how much harder live video is than video-on-demand.

"I'm happy to say every one of them was an abysmal failure," pockmarked with freeze-ups and dropped connections, Bowman said. "More laptops were thrown, mainly by me."

About 3 million people per day view some form of video on MLB's site, Bowman said. Much of that is video-on-demand -- baseball news shows or highlight clips. To serve live game feeds by the millions is going to require some new tricks.

Among them will be the caching of live streams, which MLBAM expects to start this year. MLBAM is also working with Swarmcast to see if a peer-to-peer (P2P) method might be the answer, Bowman said.

Exhibitors at VON's video pavilion were split on P2P. The more established firms -- like The FeedRoom, which provides video technology for outfits like The New York Times -- say content delivery networks (CDNs) have done just fine so far.

FeedRoom officials say March Madness, in a previous year, is the only time they've had trouble with scale. In that case, the company used multiple CDNs, feeding them in round-robin fashion: Akamai Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM - message board) would handle one viewer's feed, Limelight Networks LLC the next, and so on, evenly divvying up the traffic.

Vividas, a video supplier similar to The FeedRoom, is considering P2P, but primarily for the cost savings; high-traffic events can still be handled with multiple CDNs, says Iain Molland, Vividas CEO.
"The peer-to-peer is attractive because of the cost model," Molland says, adding that his company is considering the technology. "But we use the CDN because we think it's the best way to do it right now."

And it's worth noting that CDNs have been working on beefing up scale. An Akamai spokesman says his is the sole CDN delivering 56 of this year's March Madness games.

Some companies are pushing P2P connections as the answer. Newcomer Neokast claims it's got a way to stream to "infinite" users via P2P. In the non-HD realm, a company called Network Foundation Technologies LLC makes similar claims and has broadcast live events such as OzzFest -- but mostly for standard-definition feeds that aren't full-screen sized.

Then there's the question of high-definition TV. For a recent report, "DSL Video Bandwidth Crunch," Light Reading Insider polled encoding vendors on the bandwidth needed for online TV, given advances in compression. The consensus is that HD video will be scrunched into feeds as skinny as 4 Mbit/s within two years. That's meant to be good news, but still a long way from the 700 kbit/s many video providers are using.


Click here to view Table 1.

Some providers claim they've got proprietary ways to squash an HD signal even further. Vividas, for instance, says it can transmit HD on a 1-Mbit/s channel.

Bowman says it doesn't matter yet. MLBAM streams at 750 kbit/s and doesn't yet do HD online, even though cable companies have asked about that; Bowman's group just isn't convinced that live HD streaming can work on a large scale.

- Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading"

[the analyst] 28/3/2007 12:54

Highlights of the recent Video on Net forum and Vividas gets a mention:



"UK-based Vividas and Vancouver, B.C.'s Clipstream were both showing playerless video streaming will interest anyone who has wrestled trying download the right player for a video clip and finally just giving up in frustration. The Clipstream player is encoded with the video so all you do is click and play. Some major content publishers have licensed the software, according to he company, so you should start seeing it soon."

I looked at clipstream to see if they were a competitor to Vividas. Take a look at the quality of their videos...

[james 2] 28/3/2007 09:05

Just received an e-postcard video from some friends who recently moved to Aus, even that used Vivadas video.

[the_pimp] 26/3/2007 20:20

No doubt the quality is fantastic. I watched the Mark Buckingham film as well. The big thing that I think makes it a must have for some of the content providers,especially the film companies, is the Digital Rights Management (ie It can't be copied). Also the fact it uses the fraction of the bandwidth is important as well.Think they have the front end and the back end.

Exciting times.

[sja123] 26/3/2007 20:07

May not get to see any of it then........I must admit, I did pay for and watch The Secret.....more to see the Vividas quality than for the content of the film itself, which takes a leap of faith to get into......the quality was excellent and with a good monitor, equally as good as TV......

[the_pimp] 26/3/2007 20:05

It looks as if Fox Sports popularity is on the wane so they need to improve the quality by using.........you know who.

[the_pimp] 26/3/2007 19:54

I see there are some games tomorrow and the day after. Which ones are being broadcast I don't know. Not a great website considering it is one of the most used sites.

[the_pimp] 26/3/2007 19:45

I have been looking out for the advertising as well but haven't been able to see anything although I think the first games have already been broadcast using VDS. You will only be able to watch it if you are in the US I think I am right in saying.

I would think when they move onto PPV they will start advertising which could be in the next couple of weeks.

[sja123] 26/3/2007 18:02

Regarding the deal with Fox to stream ten football matches from this South American competition, I've been trying to find any mention of this on the Fox site, without luck. Not sure when the competition is and can anyone watch....it states that the first few games will be free to give people an idea of quality before they ask for money to watch......wouldn't mind having a look at that.....

[the analyst] 26/3/2007 17:48

"What if 180,000 people try to view the video at the same time?"

Now that would be a lovely problem to have. Maybe they could simply use two Akamai servers instead of one? Fox, or whoever is providing the content would probably have to pay twice as much to Vividas to stream that many simultaneously.

[the analyst] 26/3/2007 17:45

I'm not sure anyone should be claiming that other companies can't replicate what vividas can do one day. In time, they will surely get there. Of course, other companies can't replicate the technology that is protected by the Vividas patents. Maybe that is the barrier that has prevented other streaming companies competing on quality.

Like I have mentioned before, it is essential to get a big market lead before others catch up. With the Newscorp and Sony deals, they seem to have made a very good start on getting the market share they desire. More deals needed though.

[littleredrooster] 26/3/2007 17:18

"Vividas say they can stream 90,000 of any one video at any one instant in time, so it's difficult to know where the weakest link would be."

What if 180,000 people try to view the video at the same time? It's still not clear to me what VDS can do that others cannot replicate quite easily. The codec certainly is not superior.

[stegrego] 26/3/2007 17:06

Simply seems to be the best tech out there at the moment to me - so fingers crossed that every man and his dog will take it up..

[the analyst] 26/3/2007 16:53

Yes, when they say no software required it's not true. They should say no software downloaded onto the hard drive required.

I think the vividas videos, irrespective of which website they are on, tend to be streamed using Vividas' Akamai backbone servers. This is likely to be an important factor as to why the videos never seem to need to stop to buffer.

Vividas say they can stream 90,000 of any one video at any one instant in time, so it's difficult to know where the weakest link would be. From my experience, their videos never suffer from any temporary drop in quality, which is quite remarkable. For me, it makes vividas the only technology on which I would pay to watch a streaming feature movie or sports event at the moment. Watching a film or football match with constant buffering would ruin the experience for me.

[littleredrooster] 26/3/2007 15:27

"Instant playback on any user machine, with no user prerequisites needed"

Java scripting is required.

"I looked at the flash player some time ago and again today - It's still very patchy and keeps stopping to buffer, making it usless for watching a film."

I suppose that the performance may depend on the traffic demands on the host website at the time? Presumably streaming can only be as good as the weakest link in the chain?

[the analyst] 26/3/2007 15:07

Another video from Vividas, hadn't seen this one before.

[the analyst] 26/3/2007 14:14

I looked at the flash player some time ago and again today - It's still very patchy and keeps stopping to buffer, making it usless for watching a film. This may be because I only have a 2mb connection and flash requires more than that.

The vividas streaming runs smoothly in full screen even when I use a 1mb connection and a wireless link to the router.

[the analyst] 26/3/2007 14:11

Video Streaming comes of age

The rapid decline of TV audiences in recent years, has paved the way for Internet advertising to be the next viable and effective channel for distibuting your video message. In the past, one the the biggest issues for advertisers has been the quality of such video content, whether it is distributed via a viral email campaign or live streaming straight off a web site. This is about to change. Using cutting edge Vividas technology, Loaded has a solution that will guarantee you will achieve your marketing campaign goals, including:

high video delivered in full screen streaming format, reflecting the quality of your company or product
timely distribution at low costs
ability to deliver through corporate firewalls and networks, as is often needed, and works without any technical pre-requisites
Deploying this unique technology by Vividas, Loaded can provide the following benefits:
Reach - Instant playback on any user machine, with no user prerequisites needed, including behind Firewalls
Scale - Highly scalable architecture up to 90,000 simultaneous streams
Impact - Full screen broadcast quality up to High Definition resolutions instantly
Accountable - Extensive reporting metrics, time of play, country, length of play, number of pauses.
Expert digital media consultants to advise and help set up
Cost Effective. Up to 30% cheaper than Flash video to deploy
Low Risk - Flexible tariff options that grow with business

[the_pimp] 23/3/2007 19:19

Vividas seem to be in the right sector at the right time.