PlayStream, a company that provides online streaming media services, has rolled out a distributed network service that it says enhances its streaming and progressive download media delivery services.
PlayStream provides content delivery services for businesses and consumers. Its proprietary easy linking technology lets customers manage, deliver and monitor audio, video and multimedia content over the Internet. In other words, it’s for customers who need to stream media from an ISP who are seeking simple, inexpensive solutions for deploying media over the Web. Customers range from Fortune 100 companies to non-profit organizations and hobbyists that rely on PlayStream’s online statistics to provide metrics on the performance and viewership of their media.
PlayStream’s services integrate such formats a QuickTime, RealNetworks’ RealMedia, Microsoft’s Windows Media, MP3 and ClipStream’s Java Streaming, with PlayStream’s proprietary technologies. The new service utilizes PlayStream’s content delivery systems in Seattle, Washington and Atlanta to deliver a variety of media types over a dynamic network architecture.
The company has signed a new, expanded agreement with Internap to implement the distributed network, which works in conjunction with Internap’s intelligent routing services at both hubs, to greatly improve the delivery of media over the Internet for PlayStream’s customers, according to PlayStream. Internap is a managed IP service that routes data across nine Internet backbones through a single connection from a customer’s network to one of Internap’s Service Points.
Unlike many distributed networks that employ caching devices that retain only the more popular viewed files, PlayStream claims that its new Atlanta hub fully replicates all customers’ content in real-time, retaining all customer files, regardless of content viewing popularity, until the customer elects to remove the files from their account. Live Streaming customers also get to take advantage of the new distributed network, as all live streams will be delivered from both hubs, company reps said.
Almost exactly a year ago, PlayStream released PlayStream Director, an enhancement to its streaming media services. PlayStream Director integrates with the company’s proprietary PlayStream EasyLink technology to offer end-users features such as enabling QuickTime files to fully stream via e-mail (no progressive downloading) without having to embed reference data in HTML.