By Chris Lee

Almost a third (28 per cent) of 16-24 year olds listens to music at least weekly on a mobile phone, according to British music trade organisation the BPI. This is just one piece of evidence which points towards a growing expectation amongst UK consumers towards receiving the same type of digital content on their mobile handsets that they enjoy on other, larger platforms.

The challenge for content providers is that audio, video and image files need to be reformatted to make them compatible with mobile handsets which have far smaller capacity for storage, limited processing power and limited bandwidth capacity. This is a process which has traditionally involved manual transcoding and meta data management, a time-consuming process. Some mobile aggregators or storefronts may require a few key items of meta data in a .csv file, while others will demand complex, formal XML documents, for example.

But now a Reading-based firm, Destar, has come up with a product which it says will streamline the entire transcoding, conversion and meta data management process.

Making the Switch

Destar says that its MediaWeava product, launched this month, enables record labels, distributors and other media owners to swiftly convert music and video files into mobile-ready formats, cutting the time, effort and expense it takes typically to distribute music content to mobile storefronts.

“Manual processing of files using desk top software and managing your distribution with a spreadsheet doesn’t allow record labels to scale their mobile businesses sufficiently,” Destar director, Glenn de Smidt, told NMK. “MediaWeava reduces the time it takes to convert files and streamlines the process of delivering media content to mobile storefronts. It therefore cuts operational costs and increases competitive edge for stakeholders along the digital content chain.”

The amount of music and video content which will need to be converted for mobile will only grow, de Smidt argues, increasing the burden on record labels and media owners to create mobile-ready audio and video files.

“Record labels and digital distributors cannot realise the full potential of the mobile marketplace while files need to be converted manually,” he added.

MediaWeaving

One company that has been using MediaWeava is Indie Mobile, a mobile marketing and digital distribution company for independent record labels. Indie generates revenue from the creation of ring tones, full track downloads and video tones, as well as creating interactive campaigns for bands and labels. Elements of the programme include task management, asset management, transcoding, distribution and reporting.

De Smidt said that MediaWeava has altered Indie Mobile’s processes, saving hundreds of man hours each month and enabling a distributed workflow across different physical locations. Retail outlets that were previously unprofitable due to the costs of production are now new opportunities for revenue generation, he concluded.