Cable Modems bring video stream home: Media One jumps on board with news service

Despite their relatively recent entry into the Internet market, cable modem service providers already are moving quickly into the second and third generation of services.

After letting users saturate their brains with eye-popping speed, companies such as MediaOne, Road Runner and @Home are developing content that takes greater advantage of that bandwidth. Not surprisingly, they are turning to video.

MediaOne Express, the cable modem business unit of U S West, became the latest to unveil a service, teaming up with New England Cable News to launch a streaming video technology system that allows users to see news clips on their computers. More importantly, MediaOne is hooking up with content providers to significantly shorten the time between filming and Web publishing.

>From the user's perspective, Streamcast doesn't look significantly different from other streaming video stored on Web sites, said Kip Compton, MediaOne's director of Internet systems and services.

"Obviously for people with the cable modem, depending on their processing speed, it could be very high-quality," he said. "What's really different about the site is the amount of video."

On the NECN Web site at www.necnews.com, users can view video clips of local newscasts. Additionally, they can search daily archived newscasts by topic and view footage from about 4000 stories stored on the site.

Key to the whole process is an automated production environment that allows one producer to publish dozens of indexed digital video clips a day. Using multiple computers to perform the time-intensive video compression required to transmit video on the Internet, the producer can write headlines and key words as video is transferred from its analog format into one of three digital formats.

In its first application on NECN's site, the company is using Progressive Networks' RealAudio/RealVideo format. However, Streamcast also will support VDOnet's VDOLive and Microsoft's Netshow formats, Compton said. By remaining client-independent, content providers reach a wider audience, including those whose bandwidth is not guaranteed, he added.

During the next few months, however, MediaOne will look at a number of services that will require provisioned bandwidth. "The ability of guaranteed bandwidth is going to be something very valuable, and it's something we're exploring," said Compton. Among the possibilities is a service that delivers video clips to users' computers based on preset profiles.

"The idea is to use the existing database," he said. "We're looking at dynamically assembling a newscast so it doesn't become a newscast anymore. The technology even exists to do targeted ad insertion, and that's something we definitely have our eye on."

While not offering the sheer volume of NECN's site, Road Runner also is incorporating streaming video. The signature feature of the company's welcome screen is Road Runner TV, a large format video window that continuously plays segments featuring programming, events and other information available on Road Runner. Consumers click on the video image and are linked to a corresponding area.

Moving beyond those links, though, may be several months away because consumers will want high-quality video that may not be possible with existing formats, said Mario Vecchi, senior vice president and chief technical officer for Road Runner. "The balance is between what the consumer expects and what's available and affordable," he said.

Others also remain unconvinced that subscriptions and ads could sustain streaming video as a service.

"The whole concept of streaming overcomes some of the bandwidth problems and makes it more feasible," said Herb Maher, senior vice president and securities analyst for Boston-based Advest Inc. "One of the problems we're having still is coming up with economically justifiable applications."

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