7:14pm EDT, Thu Sep 2

Aspera Can Transfer 1,000 Movies in Two Hours

By: The Online Reporter
Publish Date: June 05, 2009

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So now you’ve got all these movies and TV shows converted to digital and you need to send them from Hollywood to New York. The choices are to ship them off on physical media like hard disks or tapes, use a traditional FTP Internet file transfer program or hire a pricey outside service that bounces them off a satellite. Aspera Software says it has a better way. With a single 1 Gbps bandwidth connection, its software can move a terabyte of video data, equivalent to approximately 1,000 full-length feature movies, from New York to Los Angeles in just over two hours, according to Francois Quereuil, marketing director at Aspera. Its software maximizes the available broadband speed to provide the fastest file transfer, he says. It can be used for intra-company or inter-company transfers as long as the sending or receiving computer has licensed and installed Aspera software. Typical users are film and TV studios that distribute to TV networks or to online video services such as Apple iTunes, Hulu.com or Microsoft for its Zune or Xbox online services. Customers also use it to transfer video files to replicators that duplicate large quantities of DVDs or to production houses that help edit. The company says that in the future its technology could be used by online video services to speed up the transfer of video files to homes. Claims Long List of Happy Users Every US TV network uses Aspera software, the company said. Level 3 Communications, which operates fiber-based communications services for large organizations, bundles Aspera software and Level 3’s security functions in its service. Deluxe Laboratories’ EFILM, which says it operates the most advanced digital laboratory in the world for the motion picture and television industry, selected and deployed Aspera’s software “as a high- performance file-transfer foundation in its digital laboratory business.” It said that while an FTP was adequate for moving small files, it was impractical for the truly massive collections of files – say 25,000 files at 13 MB each or even more – that it needed to transfer globally. Shipping hard drives had its own set of problems such as viruses, time-consuming loading and unloading, the need for encryption and, sometimes worst of all, long delays in customs. By contrast, EFILM said, high-speed telecommunications with Aspera software provides fast, secure and efficient transport. “Media that used to be shipped over traditional land-based carrier systems as tapes or on hard drives can now be transported across the network,” said Robert Eicholz, VP of technology and corporate development at EFILM. “The speed is dramatically faster than traditional FTP and robust. We also have complete visibility into our bandwidth utilization.” DVS Intelestream uses Aspera software to distribute feature film promotional materials, television programming, movie trailers, music videos, commercials and other broadcast media for all the major motion picture studios, many of the world’s largest advertising agencies, radio stations, Fortune 500 and independent production companies. Within the first three months after launching a new download service called EPK.tv, DVS had over 13,000 downloads to customers who said they appreciated the convenience and speed of receiving the broadcast-quality video over the Web. EPK.tv provides downloads to domestic and international locations, offering equally good performance to all users regardless of location. John Libby, CTO of the company’s EPK.tv, said, “Never before in Web- based downloads have we or our clients been able to truly maximize bandwidth and quick throughput until now. Digital distribution of today’s video requirements for promotional material would not be possible without Aspera.” The magazine Sports Illustrated used Aspera software to transmit high-quality digital pictures from various basketball arenas around the US to its New York headquarters. The price of the software – and it is software, not a service – is based on the amount of bandwidth the customer wants to use. The one- time license fees start at $2,000 and range to upwards of $100,000 or so. Customers can, of course, upgrade to higher speeds as the transfer quantity increases. Most customers start with their existing broadband speed. Unlike FTP, Aspera is not slowed as distances between receiver and sender increase. It’s “distance agnostic,” the company said. It ends up being hundreds or even thousands of times faster than FTP. The company said it’s also faster and significantly less expensive than third-party transfer services, even those that transfer by satellite. It also allows its customers to use their own computing infrastructure. Aspera software includes security for private transport, data integrity, content encryption and user access control. The Consumer Market Beckons Looking ahead, Aspera is eyeing the consumer market. Its software isn’t much help for consumers whose download rate is less than 10 Mbps. For consumers with speeds of 10 Mbps and higher, Aspera software could get the consumer watching a movie sooner. Here’s a comparison chart: Speed Minutes to download 1GB with Aspera 10 Mbps 14 50 Mbps less than 3 100 Mbps 1.5 Looking Ahead at the Consumer Market So, the online video entertainment services such as Amazon, iTunes, Netflix and the like are looking for differentiation for their services. And today’s broadband networks, with a few exceptions, are not ready for lots of high-speed transmissions of high-definition material to residences. Aspera could help in several ways: - Used in conjunction with local caching of video content and newly developed intelligence to better predict consumer viewing needs, Aspera software could enable users to start watching movies instantly while downloading the whole digital file in a matter of minutes. - If Aspera software were embedded into set-top boxes like the Roku, Xbox or TiVo boxes that Netflix streams to, movies could be pre- downloaded and ready when the subscriber is eligible to view the next flick. It also means that Netflix could download movies in HD even when the user’s broadband speed isn’t fast enough for HD streams. - If Aspera were available as an iPhone app, even if just for Wi-Fi access, users could quickly download and store a couple of movies. A movie takes about 6 GBs. In fact, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said last week that no mobile broadband network, including his own company’s, is ready for the surge in video that’s coming. Stephenson should know because AT&T sells the world’s most popular smartphone and is beginning to push netbooks aggressively. Both will rapidly ratchet up the use of mobile broadband for video transmissions. AT&T and Verizon Wireless are building out large archipelagos of Wi-Fi hotspots to handle files too large for their cellular networks to handle. Cablevision has already built a string of Wi-Fi hotspots that covers most of its pay-TV footprint. Automatic Speed Control Aspera has already developed a function called Adaptive Automatic Rate Control that could also help in consumer applications. It automatically adjusts the speed of the Aspera download so that the download does not hinder other applications that are being used such as Web browsing, e-mail, messaging, VoIP and the like. The company is also looking at non-digital media applications such as for defense and intelligence organizations, biotech companies and cloud services. All need to maximize the speed of transferring files. The privately held company has been in business for five years. It would seem that one of the cash-heavy high-tech companies like Cisco, Qualcomm, Intel, Microsoft, Google, Oracle and the like might be interested in acquiring a product whose revenues should increase rapidly as the use of the Net to transfer video files grows. Or, maybe even Thomson or Tandberg, which offer high-speed file transfers as a service. Cisco has been the most vocal and optimistic about the prospects for the growth of online video.