James Delahunty
15 Apr 2007 19:01
SpeedBit, an Israeli company located in Herzliya and Haifa, claims its new download accelerator can download a film in under 20 minutes (depending on connection speed, of course). The company is tackling a huge problem with video downloading; downloads take too long and can be hundreds of times larger than music downloads. This problem has led many consumers away from movie download services. The company plans to roll out the video accelerator by April 19th.
The company is still working on the product and it is far from what SpeedBit aims to achieve with it. "Reducing the time to download movies to around 15 minutes will definitely lead to a big upsurge in penetration of the trend," predicts Andrew Hargreaves, an electronics industry analyst at Pacific Crest Securities, a Portland (Ore.) investment bank.
An early, free version of the product designed to improve delivery of Streaming videos from YouTube was rolled out in March, and nearly one million copies already have been downloaded. "Our accelerator deals with the common problems of buffering and freezing and dramatically improves the quality of the viewing experience," says co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Idan Feigenbaum, a 29-year-old, self-taught computer programmer
The first version of the download accelerator, due out next week, is adapted specifically to work with iTunes. SpeedBit aims to release versions in the near future that work on videos sold via other distributors.
Source:
BusinessWeek