Episodic Joins the OVP Fray

Written by Ryan Lawler

Monday, October 19. 2009 at 02:30 PM EDT Post a comment

Digg   Del.icio.us   Reddit   Email This

no ratings

• Login to Rate

Episodic Inc. has become the latest company to announce its entrance into the market for white-label online video management services, offering what it claims is the most comprehensive platform in the segment.

With the official launch of its product suite, Episodic promises to help media companies manage live and on-demand video streams, while also providing live ad insertion, real-time analytics, and the ability to publish and monetize video on any device -- all from a single platform.

Using the Episodic management platform, content owners can publish live or on-demand streams to the Web using Adobe's Flash or Microsoft Silverlight. The platform supports adaptive bit-rate streaming for both technologies; for Flash, it can deliver dynamic bit-rate streams using Adobe's Flash Media Server and its Real-time Messaging Protocol, or it can "chunk" and deliver those streams via HTTP.

The platform also has a mobile offering, and can stream to the iPhone, BlackBerry, or even Windows Mobile (although Episodic CEO Noam Lovinsky says the company hasn't had any customer requests for streaming to Windows Mobile devices).

Episodic says its key differentiator is the comprehensiveness of its platform. While competitors like Brightcove Inc. and thePlatform Inc. have formed vast partner ecosystems to offer features that they don't have in-house, Episodic hopes to be able to meet all of a customer's needs in one place.

"Our message is that this is a comprehensive platform. We do live and on-demand, mobile, dynamic ad insertion," Lovinsky says. "With Brightcove, you have to talk with four different companies to do all that. We have all these functional areas integrated, and we've productized it. Everything is out of the box."

Of course, Episodic isn't the only company trying to set itself apart with a one-stop-shop message. Ooyala Inc. recently added a live component to its video management platform, which it hopes will set it apart from competitors that are primarily focused on on-demand video management. Video distribution firm Kyte made a similar move last month, adding live streaming to its platform, which already offers mobile support.

Despite being late to the game, Lovinsky says Episodic is focused on major media companies and has already snagged some business from Showtime. "When it comes down to who we see in all of our deals, it's us, Ooyala, Brightcove, and thePlatform," he says.