Penthera mediacast app allows content to be sent, stored, played back

WHILE MUCH OF THE ATTENTION LAST WEEK AT THE 3GSM WORLD CONGRESS TRADE SHOW IN BARCELONA, SPAIN, WAS SPENT ON MOBILE BROADCAST TV PROVIDER MEDIAFLO AND THE FUTURE OF ITS U.S. DVB-H COUNTERPARTS, HIWIRE AND MODEO, PLENTY OF OTHER COMPANIES ARE CLAMORING FOR THEIR PLACE IN THE MOBILE TV SPOTLIGHT.
Penthera Technologies Inc. is one such company. Amid the flurry of speculation and analysis regarding mobile television, Penthera demonstrated its new software platform, Mediacast. The application allows mobile TV broadcasters to send media files directly to devices for storage and later playback. The platform goes beyond television as well, offering a new delivery mechanism for MP3 files, podcasts, video clips and more.
Crown Castle International Inc.’s Modeo is already running its service on the Mediacast platform. While much of the industry is heavily focused on live mobile broadcast television, Mediacast is making the case that, for mobile TV to reach mass adoption, it must incorporate the same viewing conveniences that digital video recorders and on-demand services have brought to viewers.
“We feel that this is not a compelling enough value for end users,” Penthera CTO Adam Berger said of live mobile TV. “Frankly, what is the chance of finding something on eight channels that you want to watch? We believe that this is really a sea change for mobile TV in general. Within a couple of years you’re going to see time shifting become an integral part of mobile TV.”
Mediacast includes a server and client that encodes, aggregates and categorizes all types of media files before scheduling them for delivery. Wireless operators can each make their own decision as to when they’d like to open their networks to deliver these files, Berger said. Users can subscribe to the media they want to have available and the files will automatically be broadcast to their device for later viewing. “We’re the road it travels on,” Berger explained.
The Mediacast system is designed for use over any digital broadcast network.