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Mo-DV Earns Patent for Technology That Paves the Way for Multimedia Files to Be Played on a Wide Range of Mobile Devices
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Flash-Oriented Solution Provides a New Distribution Channel for Content Providers Seeking to Reach Mobile Consumers Through Video
Campbell, CA -- Mo-DV (Mobile Digital Video), a premier technology provider to play and secure video and audio content for mobile devices and PCs, has been awarded a patent for software technology that will revolutionize the way media distributors, retailers, kiosk manufacturers, memory card manufacturers, and even movie studios distribute video and other multimedia content to consumers. The patent paves the way for millions of consumers to have access to Mo-DV’s innovative technology, which allows media files to be played on most cell phones and computers.
The patent was awarded on the heels of Mo-DV’s first shipping products: USB flash drives with bundled feature-length movies from a major motion picture studio. These products are shipping in the US, Spain, Germany, and Belgium under multiple brands. The technology for which the patent was awarded will allow for high-quality video, movie and media file playback across different computers and mobile devices that support removable storage media (USB flash drive, memory card, hard disk drive). With this patented technology, consumers can purchase or rent movies and videos and play them on any cell phone or portable computer device they choose, much like a DVD can be played on any DVD player. The Mo-DV player works across 80 percent of smart phones and on many feature phones. Mo-DV’s technology also can be used to make USB flash drives playback movies and other media content on any PC.
The cell phone market is widely fragmented making it almost impossible for large video distributors to deliver video to cell phones. iPhone customers have video available to them via iTunes, but are trapped in a "walled garden," forced to obtain their video from one place only. Furthermore, Digital Rights Management (DRM), which refers to access control technologies used by publishers, copyright holders, and hardware manufacturers, creates an undue barrier of use for the consumer by tying the DRM to one particular playback device like a cell phone or PC, making it impossible for digital content purchased for playback on one device to play on a different device. Mo-DV’s solution simplifies the landscape by providing a universal video player that works across the widest range of computers and cell phones from many manufacturers. The new patent covers solutions that separate the DRM from the computer or cell phone used for playback, tying it instead to the video and software player and storage card.
"Trying to obtain video on cell phones has been a messy process for consumers," said Jessica H. Fullmer, Founder and CEO. "Consumers simply have not had access to the mobile video they want. Video suppliers and distributors can’t make it available because it must be encoded in multiple formats to play across mobile handsets—which is costly—and even if done it will only play on a small subset of handsets in the market. Mo-DV has changed all this, creating a universal player that provides a seamless cross-platform solution."
The applications of the new technology have widespread implications for a wide range of companies involved in content creation and distribution, including retailers, content distributors, service providers, kiosk manufacturers, duplication houses and movie and television studios.
Mo-DV’s new technology taps into a growing trend—the emerging video-enabled cell phone market. Mobile handsets are becoming video-ready in unprecedented numbers. Of the 1.18 billion cell phones shipped in 2008, roughly 15 percent were "smartphones" with sufficient screen size, resolution and horsepower to play high quality video. By 2011, Gartner expects more than 65 percent of cell phones shipped will be smartphones. In addition, storage, essential for large video files, has reached critical mass. Strategy Analytics finds that the average memory card size for phones is over 1GB, growing from 512MB in 2007 to 26GB in 2012. Further confirming the need for Mo-DV’s multimedia storage solution is the fact that half of cell phones shipped today have memory card slots, expected to more than double to over 1 billion in 2011.
"These statistics, combined with the fact that consumers demand for video on cell phones is growing rapidly, indicate the need for our product," said Fullmer. "US consumers want video on ALL phones, not just iPhones, and they want to be able to use that video on any of the devices they own."
To assist with the licensing of its software and intellectual property, Mo-DV has been working with ipCapital Group, an intellectual property consulting firm that has delivered more than 450 successful IP engagements to companies in a wide range of industries.
For more information about Mo-DV, please call (408) 374-7235 or visit www.mo-dv.com.
About Mo-DV
Mo-DV (Mobile Digital Video) develops software solutions for device-independent video playback. The Mo-DV content player is inexpensive to implement, self-contained and platform independent with cross-platform DRM for seamless content playback on most computers and cell phones.
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