Over recent years the web has seen the growth of so-called “Web 2.0 on Mobile” Web 2.0 services based around the concept of a two-way information flow, and the empowering of individuals to create and publish their own content and information through blogs, wikis, video sharing, and social networking services. Video content is often central to these services, Web 2.0 allowing the uploading and sharing of content generated by customers, along with the emergence of video advertising on the web.
Access to video content from a wider range of devices including mobile phones, set top boxes, and games consoles is the next logical step, but providing these services with the best possible quality can be problematic. Mobile devices generally have additional constraints regarding the type of content they can support due to CPU, screen size, and power limitations. In contrast to PCs where new codecs and media players can be easily installed or embedded into web browsers, many phones can support only a limited set of standardized codecs as the decode and playback functions are coupled with hardware capabilities in the phone in order to reduce power drain.
The obvious solution to this dilemma is to employ offline trans-coding solutions coupled with a Web 2.0 content management platform to convert the source content into a range of formats appropriate for the mobile devices and network access speed used by customers.
