Motorola put out two announcements today in the lead-up to IBC 2008, the big, European, media conference, which starts later in the week. There is news of a VOD customer win for Motorola (cableco Ziggo in the Netherlands has selected Motorola’s on-demand technology platform), and an overall show release detailing the demos Motorola will have on site in Amsterdam. Two demos in particular have piqued my interest, and I’m hoping to get photos and/or video once the show starts.
First, booth visitors will get a chance to shoot HD content, which will then be encoded and spliced into live video using the Motorola CherryPicker CAP1000. As someone who used to do amateur editing of analog tape, I think this demo is just cool. I’m waiting for them to set it up stateside so I can try it myself.
Second, Motorola will have on display a USB transcoder designed to plug into a set-top, transcode live or recorded video, and output the content in the right format, bit rate and screen size for “a variety of portable media players.” This is one of those products that, as far as I’m concerned, can’t come to market fast enough. Even assuming there will be DRM barriers, the idea of having an easy way to carry around recorded content in a useful form is tantalizing. There are of course ways to stream DVR content now, but a USB device is much more accessible for most users, and it doesn’t rely on access to the Internet.
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