Startups rush to pave way for Web video

BitGravity Inc. is aiming for the same market, with a network of servers designed to deliver high-definition video. It launched the service three months ago, and at the show, the Burlingame, Calif., company plans to announce that it will be expanding the service to deliver live, streaming video.

Live streaming has been a "luxury" only the big media companies could afford, said Perry Wu, BitGravity's CEO, leaving a lot of unsatisfied demand, for instance for regional sportscasts. "Whether its basketball or field hockey or water polo or swimming, the number of people who want to watch that in real time is tremendous."

Demonstrations on BitGravity's Web site show high-resolution — if slightly jerky — video that starts almost immediately.

Two other startups, Eyealike Inc. and Visible Measures Corp., are tackling other problems close to the heart of content providers. Eyealike of Bellevue, Wash., will be demonstrating software that can scan videos submitted to Web sites to see if they contain copyright material.

Such filters are already in place, for example at YouTube, but Eyealike President Greg Heuss said the startup's product is better than the competition in that it can identify video that's had its audio stripped out or been cropped to as little as a quarter of the original frame.

Boston-based Visible Measures will be touting its service, which lets Web sites track how viewers play their videos: where they pause, what they rewind to see again. That should help the sites figure out which videos and ads that actually hold the viewers' attention, said Matt Cutler, the company's vice president of marketing.

"The challenge is: historically, no one's really known what happens after the play button is pressed," Cutler said. "What we're introducing is the ability to sort of peer beyond that."

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