BEE Internet broadcast technology garners world attention quickly: president

A Montreal-based company has attracted international interest in a new technology that provides free television over the Internet, and at a fraction of the cost of streaming platforms. BEE Multimedia Inc says its Television player also enables networks to broadcast high-quality TV without overloading their servers. Current clients include the BBC, NBC and various Fox network affiliates. BEE’s CEO, Herbert Becker, describes his technology as one of Canada’s best kept secrets. "Most of the world is discovering that here in Montreal – in this little pocket of Canada – there is a technology that is quickly succeeding Microsoft, Real and Apple. You talk to the executives at the broadcasters, and they find it hard to believe that a Canadian company would actually have a technology that’s so much better than what they have in the United States." The company also recently signed a deal with beleaguered GlobalMedia.com of Vancouver, to provide broadcasting technology as part of a new GlobalMedia contract with MotorcyclesGalore.com, though the exact nature and details of that deal are still unknown (see story on facing page). BEE’s Television player technology is unique in that it can handle broadcasts on the three main platforms – QuickTime, Windows Media, and Real – as well as a new lossless compression format invented by the company. The company hopes to increase its profile as it moves from the development to the marketing stage in its evolution. BEE started its first full year in its current incarnation in December after six years in the lab. Now, he says it’s transforming into a more sales-oriented operation with plans to bring the company public sometime in the medium-term. The Television player and associated broadcast format began as a technology venture with Microsoft Corp, working with its Media Player division. Cross-platform compatibility proved to be a problem, and the company has since developed a stand-alone platform developed with HTML browsers in mind. The system uses software which encodes video from an array of sources including professional equipment and even consumer video cameras into JPEG format. The pictures are broadcast at 30 per second, each one under one kilobyte resulting in a nearly-perfect, full-frame image. Unlike its competitors, which have shoehorned digital video into an HTML format using various plug-in players, BEE’s technology pushes images to the browser without the need to unencode them, Becker says. Even a 56k dial-up connection, he contends, can deliver excellent transmission quality. The basic broadcast package, which can host 5000 simultaneous viewers, costs a one-time $7500. A client-side player, the Television is available for free. Becker says the Television will come pre-programmed with 99 channels of content, and will eventually be used for pay-per-view, probably for an upgrade charge. One of the advantages to using the Television, Becker says, is that it is a very small download at under 1 MB and takes up little memory while running. Broadcasts can also be viewed from the URL of any company’s home page, without further downloads. Becker says he doesn’t want to get into the content game, aware of the controversy excited by companies such as JumpTV and iCraveTV. He says the BEE platform can give broadcasters an edge over "pirate" companies by providing a viable entry point onto the web, without worrying about overloading servers with traffic. He says the broadcast community is crucial to his business plan since they own a lot of the content that people want to watch. To date, Becker hasn’t accepted outside financing from either venture capitalists or angel investors, even through the 1999 dot com craze. Now, he’s looking at engineering a reverse takeover to bring the company public, and has his eye on several unnamed targets.

BEE Internet broadcast technology garners world attention quickly: president

Broadcast | April 19, 2001

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