Rovion adds a video host to your Web site

Sometimes you come across a technology that makes you sit up and take notice. That’s just what happened to me when I checked out Rovion’s BlueStreamDIRECT. But wait – don’t go to the site yet … let me explain what you’ll see and hear.

Sometimes you come across a technology that makes you sit up and take notice. That’s just what happened to me when I checked out Rovion’s BlueStreamDIRECT. But wait – don’t go to the site yet … let me explain what you’ll see and hear.

The BlueStream system allows you to add a video “host” to your Web site. When a page loads or a link is clicked an animated image of a person walks out or pops up or fades in over the top of the Web page – the Web page becomes the background for the page’s host. OK, now go to the Rovion site and then check out the LasVegas.com demo – it takes a pretty good page and turns it into a miniature performance that is really slick.

What makes this so compelling is that it is curiously more personal and certainly more engaging than a page without the virtual host. Of course, there’s no guarantee that a presentation won’t be cheesy – click here for an example – but often that’s more appealing than an otherwise inert page.

BlueStreamDIRECT allows you to run video messages up to 30 seconds in length, works with all industry-standard operating systems and Web browsers, and over all Internet connection speeds from 56K bit/sec upwards. The dynamically downloaded Flash-based player allows you to start, stop, or skip the performance.

BlueStreamPRO allows the video host to run outside of the browser, directly onto the user’s PC with a run time of up to 7 minutes using a downloaded BlueStream player (about 200K bytes in size). BlueStreamPRO works with Windows and Internet Explorer and Mac OS X 10.3.7 using Safari and with all connections speeds from 56K bit/sec upwards (see the MyWeather demo).

BlueStreamLIVE, provides, as you might guess, the ability to stream a “live,” real-time video host using the downloaded BlueStream player. BlueStreamLIVE requires the same operating environments as with BlueStreamPRO but only works with a connection running at 300K bit/sec-plus.

I love this product – it is really different and with some clever use of links you could make the behavior of the host very complex.

Rovion’s BlueStreamDIRECT pricing starts at $2,500 for a small campaign.