Neon Crunch ready to move video-on-demand technology from lab to market

Some of North America’s largest telephone companies are testing a new Canadian technology that can deliver movies-on-demand over the Internet. Toronto-based Neon Crunch, a two-person R&D shop in Toronto, is touting its asynchronous list transmission (ALT) architecture as a low-cost alternative to more expensive systems which rely on specialized hardware and software to stream multimedia content (CNM, Sept. 13/99). That promise has companies like Telus Corp and U.S. giant Enron hopping on board to test the product which has already passed smaller tests in an academic setting. With federal funding from Canarie Inc set to run out at the end of January, the company is also seeking outside investment to finance a commercial launch. The ALT project began nearly a year ago as the brainchild of University of Toronto grad student Mark Krebs and a partner. The system uses off-the-shelf protocols such as HTTP and TCP/IP to serve video objects from edge servers. The architecture makes it possible to eliminate specialized streaming, like that sold by RealNetworks for more than $10,000. Regardless of which codec or digitizing protocol is being used to digitize video and other content, Krebs says the Neon Crunch technology can handle it. The technology can also take advantage of new and improved codecs as they’re introduced. "You always hear about equivalent to VHS. It’s like a movie you’d see on TV," he adds. The system has already gone through a spate of technical testing. At the University of Toronto, medical films from a library of 1000 videos are being transmitted to classrooms at the University of Calgary. The system is operating on Canarie’s cross-Canada fibre backbone network, CA*net 3, though Krebs notes that fibre isn’t needed to support the architecture. Using two servers, one a dual-processor machine, Neon Crunch is brokering about a dozen video clients at a time. To prove the concept, Krebs notes they’ve tested up to 30 machines at a time. "We have yet to test how many clients off one machine," he says. "I think we might be surprised. We’ve been surprised already." The potential to serve large numbers of clients using standard protocols has sparked the interest of several companies in the business of eventually providing video-on-demand to consumers. Enron, the energy giant and emerging U.S fibre player, has expressed interest in using Neon’s system to deliver movies-on-demand, as part of a recently signed deal with Blockbuster Video. Neon has also signed a test agreement with an undisclosed Canadian telephone company, and Telus plans to launch its tests soon. The company is continuing to tweak the back-end brokering software, and officials say no discussions have yet occurred to further fund the project. According to Krebs, the initiative has come in under-budget over the past year, and the remainder of the funding will be used to get the software ready for commercialization. He says the partnership with Canarie will likely bear fruit as other companies involved with the consortium begin licensing the technology. One NYC-based investment bank appears interested in investing, says Krebs, though the small size of the two-man company has left the bankers unsure of how to proceed. "They’re a bit perplexed about the size of our company and how to deal with it. But, I think that things can come together. Essentially, we have a product and some credibility, a proof-of-concept, and immediate markets in the educational sector." Neon Crunch is currently awaiting patent approval for the technology. Once the technology rights are shored up and the financing is in place, Kreg says they will proceed with launching an inexpensive movie-on-demand technology. "We’d like to be a 10-15 person company and we’d pursue a strategy of direct sales to larger organizations with immediate financing. Our system can be sold to the mass-market, but we don’t need to do that right now."

Neon Crunch ready to move video-on-demand technology from lab to market

Broadcast | December 14, 2000

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