Breaking the Waves

BY ANTHONY CRUPI

Wave Systems' WaveExpress unit has rolled out the News, a premium service for broadband Internet users featuring video from AP Digital, a division of the Associated Press that distributes content to Internet and wireless customers.

An interactive, continuously updated video channel, the News is dedicated to national and international coverage via immediate, full-screen access to AP news videos. Subscribers use a drop-down menu to go directly to the clips they want to view. The channel is available over any broadband connection.

The News is available exclusively through Wavexpress's TVTonic media player. Users download TVTonic's client and pay $1.95 a month for a basic subscription with a handful of free channels, including the News. Additional premium channels are also available.

Rather than streaming content to users in real time, TVTonic is a cache service that downloads content to the user's hard drive for on-demand viewing through an Internet Explorer plug-in. Michael Sprague, WaveExpress VP, production services, says this allows for better picture quality and prevents bandwidth from being gobbled up.

?We're running at about 1,500 kb per second,? Sprague says. ?That's twice as fast as streaming video. And because you store the content on your hard drive, you can access it whenever you like ? on a plane, the subway, wherever.?

New content is downloaded periodically, and old content is timed to expire. Sprague says that this saves the user's hard drive from being monopolized by too much rich content, but that it also appeals to content providers who worry about digital rights management issues.

?We are pleased to work with Wavexpress to offer AP national and world news videos through this broadband delivery technology,? said Thomas E. Slaughter, VP and director of AP Digital. ?As a result of this agreement, the latest news video clips will be accessible as one of TVTonic's primary content channels.?

News isn't the only rich content Wavexpress has on offer. Earlier in December, the company launched its Model TV style channel, a pulchritudinous portal developed in conjunction with Videofashion. Other broadband video services include gaming, animation, progressive music and a short film channel.