San Francisco-based video search company, blinkx, has launched a
broadband TV service, dubbed blinkx BBTV, which it says leverages
the company’s patented speech and visual recognition technology to
link programming to relevant information on the Web. The service,
which launched April 2nd and which is available free of charge (it
requires end-users to download a 1.8MB file), currently offers a library
of independent movies and programming from blinkx’s video-search
partners. It employs hybrid peer-to-peer streaming, Microsoft DRM
technology, and a point-and-click channel interface, and presents
content in full-screen mode. “Broadband Internet connections are fast
enough today that with the right technology, it’s possible to deliver an
experience that’s equal in quality to television,” blinkx founder and
CEO, Suranga Chandratillake, said in a prepared statement.
“Consumers are accustomed to online video: short-form, often amateur
clips that play in a Web browser–blinkx BBTV delivers online
television: full-length, professional TV programming, delivered in
exceptional quality. The Web is the largest repository of connected
information in the world–on any subject and from myriad sources.
BBTV delivers television over the Internet, but it also fuses that TV
with the wealth of information on the Web, rather than appearing as
just another layer floating above it.”
Key features of the new service, according to blinkx, include:
- Speech-based navigation: the company says that its patented speech
recognition technology enables BBTV to automatically create a speech
track of a piece of video, thus allowing end-users to search through
content word-for-word and jump to specific points in the video, simply
by searching for a spoken word or name. - Clickable video: end-users can “shift-click” on a word in the speech
track to access additional information on a person, location or object
within the video. - Automatic Web linking to program-relevant content–such as
background info on actors and personalities, movie reviews, and
information on locations shown within the program–on Google,
Wikipedia, IMDB and other news, entertainment, travel and sports
sites.
blinkx, which says that the new service is fully compatible with its
AdHoc contextual advertising platform, promises that the service will
add “dozens” of additional channels and an array of premium video
content in the coming months, and that it will be powering similar
services for its partner media and entertainment sites.
