PacketVideo Turns 10

(Business News & Technology News, 12 Aug 2008)

PacketVideo (PV), a subsidiary of NextWave Wireless Inc., hits a major milestone this month with the celebration of its 10th year as a multimedia software pioneer. Established in 1998, PV became the first company to put video on a mobile device to prove that compressed video could travel over mobile networks. Since then, video has become commonplace on mobile devices, and PV's software solutions have shipped on more than 250 million devices worldwide. Among the services PV's software powers are Verizon Wireless' VCAST music and video, NTT DoCoMo's 3G FOMA service and Orange's OrangeWorld.

"We always believed in the potential in mobile entertainment that could be enjoyed anywhere, any time and on any device," says Jim Brailean, Ph.D., PV's co-founder and CEO. "Remember, 1998 was an era when mobile phones had monochrome screens with room for 16 speed-dial numbers. People thought we were crazy, but we knew our software solutions would make it easy for handsets to become less about voice and more about the mobile lifestyle, especially mobile media.

"Now our solutions power video recording, video downloads, streaming video-on-demand, mobile broadcast video and two-way video telephony," says Brailean. "And that's just the video side of our business. We have just as many solutions in mobile music."

Since its inception, PV has established a number of mobile industry firsts, including the first demonstration of streaming video over a 2G mobile network in 1999, followed by numerous related trials on 2.5G and 3G networks. PV powered the first multi-format mobile media players. It was also first to power devices with rich, interactive media features on multiple platforms including Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Linux. PV software is also the engine powering the widespread QTV, the media player of the majority of Qualcomm chipsets. PV provided the first camcorder and video telephony solutions on Symbian and Windows Mobile platforms.

PV software was the first to provide over-the-air media file downloads using Windows Media, MP3, and AAC audio formats. PV has also enabled sideloading from PCs to mobile phones using Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) and WMDRM-10 for Verizon Wireless and NTT DoCoMo in 2006. PV provided the first full-featured mobile Internet movie player for NTT DoCoMo in 2007.

PV media technology has been enabling Orange mobile TV services since 2003 and PV's innovative technologies and features continue to differentiate Orange's rich TV services, including progressive downloads, fast channel switching and time shifting.

PV has always believed that industry standards improve the end-user experience and it has actively participated in many standards activities, Brailean said. A number of PV technologies are part of or have motivated video, media, wireless, telecommunications, and digital home standards. PV is also a founding member of the Open Handset Alliance, which, together with Google, has created the Android platform. The Android platform features PV's OpenCORE media subsystem, powering all Android-related multimedia applications. PV is also a member of the LiMo Foundation.

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