One of the top players in mobile video isn't based in Hollywood -- it's here in Canada.
Toronto-based QuickPlay Media has developed technology that lets companies serve up video to North American consumers through their cellphones.
QuickPlay's servers stream clips up to five minutes long, ranging from movie trailers to the previous night's hockey highlights, directly to mobile phones so that people can watch them on the fly rather than waiting for large video files to download.
"We saw an opportunity to have a platform product, basically an end-to-end solution to deliver media to consumers over mobile, that we could sell to both large media companies and to carriers," says Raja Khanna, co-founder and chief creative officer of QuickPlay Media.
QuickPlay is the genesis of a partnership between Mr. Khanna and Wayne Purboo, melding the former's media experience with the latter's telecommunications knowledge. This culminated in the acquisition of Snap Media in April, 2005, a company Mr. Khanna had founded a decade earlier.
QuickPlay currently runs mobile video-on-demand services for all the major Canadian carriers. Mr. Khanna says he sees "huge uptake" potential for its technology because "90 per cent of Canadian cellphone users will have a video-capable phone by the end of 2008."
The company's 20-per-cent growth rate month to month of late has also been fuelled by lucrative partnerships with content providers such as Bell Mobility, CBC and CHUM in Canada, along with the likes of ESPN Mobile Publishing, E! and FOX in the United States.
"[QuickPlay] is the intermediary that works with our content providers by taking the stream and coding it properly for the network bandwidth and handset," says Andy Wright, director of wireless products for Bell Mobility.
"Our service acts very much like a TV channel, so you go into the media player, select the video content you want to view, and it streams right to your handset."
The companies signed an agreement only three weeks prior to Bell's launch of its EV-DO wireless network last fall, Mr. Wright says, adding that they currently offer various monthly bundle plans priced between $15 and $30 for video-capable phones.
The Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, are a showcase of what the technology can do, with Bell streaming a three-minute clip at the end of each hour of CBC television's coverage -- 15 different clips in English and 12 in French for every day of the Olympics.
"At the end of the day, it's all about how we can make viewing, purchasing and enjoying content on cellphones a lot better for our customers. Any way [QuickPlay] can help us with that, we'd be interested in it," Mr. Wright says.
That notion is seconded by Maria Hale, vice-president of content business development in radio and television for CHUM.
From its first foray into mobile content when the public voted via text messaging for their favourites at the 2002 MuchMusic Video Awards, Ms. Hale says CHUM has been anticipating mobile video.
"We're really focused on not being intrusive and making sure that we respond to the needs and wants of our customers and audience," Ms. Hale says.
"That makes it really important for content holders like ourselves to forge good partnerships. QuickPlay is innovative and flexible, which are two things we really need, especially given the uncertainty of where the market will actually end up."
CHUM has 12 mobile-specific shows with new updates or episodes every week, although its focus will be on levering big brands like Fashion Television, Ed the Sock and MuchOnDemand, Ms. Hale adds.
For QuickPlay, that kind of aggressive marketing is exactly what Mr. Khanna anticipated -- he says he believes large media companies will want to go direct to consumers in what's called off-portal distribution.
"The carrier won't be the only 'storefront.' "
