Viocorp taps multiple mobile broadband networks for video capture

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 26 October 2010 14:59

Business IT - Technology

Video capture and distribution company, Viocorp, has introduced liveBOX, a device designed to facilitate the delivery of video from ad hoc locations by bonding together multiple mobile broadband channels and, optionally, a fixed line Internet connection.

Viocorp says its new offering is aimed initially at Australia's media organisations, sporting and community bodies and event companies and will allow them to reach their members, followers and even new audiences without investing heavily in expensive broadcasting equipment or needing to hire staff for this technically difficult task.

LiveBOX is taken to the venue where the video is to be shot and used to encode the video signal and deliver it to Viocorp's servers where it is transcoded into the formats needed for different delivery systems, for example web and iPhone. It can use the mobile broadband services of all three networks simultaneously, but never uses more than one channel on the same network as to do so would likely suck up all the available bandwidth.

Viocorp CEO, Ian Gardiner, said the product would replace Viocorp's present system where a Spinnaker - a complex and costly piece of video equipment - is sent out to each venue and used to encode the video into all of the required formats and to deliver it direct into the Akami content distribution network for onward delivery direct to end users.

This mode of operation, he said, meant that the available Internet connection, often only an ADSL2+ service, had to carry multiple video streams, and the Spinnaker required a skilled technician on site to operate it.

"liveBOX is the new standard for mobile broadcasting for one reason - it makes it easier than ever to transmit live events, even if remote, as they happen to a broad audience," Gardiner said. "We've taken a very complicated and costly process and turned it into something that can be easily executed while still retaining a high level broadcast quality."

Peter Urmson, general manager of Staging Connections - the company that provides the audio-visual services in many of Australia's largest hotels - said: "For the first time, we can easily create a broadcast audience for an event that may have previously been restricted to a small or niche audience. This opens up a whole new base of customers who may traditionally not be attracted to conducting live events because they won't attract a significant enough audience."

The liveBOX unit was developed by Canadian company Dejero and Gardiner said about 200 units were in use in North America by organisations such as Fox News and Sky News.