* Squidcast is one of the most interesting online video distribution services
We all know what the majority of YouTube videos look like: Like oranges well past their sell-by date (in other words, small and fuzzy). From this you might conclude that consumer video is a poor shriveled thing; amateurism at its best or worst depending on your viewpoint. If that is indeed what you think – you would be wrong.
For example, my friend Randy regularly creates what are really home movies, but which are polished, carefully edited, and in high-definition complete with music. Randy is just one of thousands of consumers who produce sophisticated video and they all have the same problem: How to distribute it.
Sure, they can burn disks and mail them out but isn’t this the 21st Century? Shouldn’t they be able to distribute them online to friends and family in some form that is better than a YouTube video (which is something like a tenth of the original resolution at best)?
Enter Squidcast, one of the most interesting online video distribution services I’ve come across.
Squidcast provides streaming delivery of high-definition video using a “collaborative relay network.” This is technically a form of cloud computing where content is parceled out using a technique called “information dispersal.” The encrypted data is sent from the sender’s PC to many PCs in the user network and re-assembled at the destination. The result of this information dispersal is a received bandwidth that appears to be around 3Mbps due to the parallelized, distributed delivery system.
Unlike a service such as BitTorrent, which is optimized for delivering data from many to many, Squidcast is optimized for one to few, and the Squidcast servers simply select nodes (PCs) to handle the data (ensuring at least 2X redundancy), manage the cloud, and take snapshots of content for the recipient to browse prior to delivery.
You can preview content distributed through Squidcast in your Web browser without the add-ons but to really use Squidcast you need to install a 300KB browser plugin. This addition works with Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari on Microsoft Window, Linux, and OS X.
Content can be dragged and dropped for distribution and delivered as a stream or as the original file. The format is optimized as it is transferred, and if needs be it can also be transcoded on the fly.
Squidcast is completely free and the company monetizes the service by the use of fairly innocuous ad insertions. For example, on streamed video there is a 5 to 10 second buffering window in which the company inserts a pre-roll ad. An unusual aspect of Squidcast is that they plan to engage consumers in rating the ads shown, which could well improve how entertaining the service is. Imagine if the consumer voting process weeds out the dull, boring ads and all you get are short pre-roll ads that are on a par with the ads you see in, say, the Super Bowl?
Squidcast is unique in its distributed delivery technology and the fact that they can transfer the enormous files required for high-definition videos and even transcode the content in the process.
Definitely a company to watch.
