It's widely accepted that adult entertainment has been instrumental in advancing modern technology. As far back as risque text-based computer games and erotically-themed Atari 2600 cartridges like Bachelor Party or Cathouse Blues, to today's live streaming-video sex sites, adult entertainment has fueled the necessity that is the mother of technological invention.
In contrast to this paradigm, ImaginOn will be presenting a product to the adult entertainment industry that owes its birth to the needs of the mainstream gaming industry.
ImaginOn, Inc. (Nasdaq, IMON), founded in 1996, is an information technology company focused on developing and marketing broadband interactive television servers and software. Vertically integrated, ImaginOn offers solutions that can include hardware, software, hosting, webcasting, video production, post production and website design.
ImaginOn is officially debuting ImOn.comTV� to the adult entertainment industry January 2001 in Las Vegas, concurrent with several tradeshows such as CES, the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo and the Internext Expo. In advance of this occurrence, ImaginOn President and CEO, David Schwartz, IEEE, AES, was gracious enough to visit AVN Online's offices and give us a personal demonstration of this new technology.
Before founding ImaginOn in 1996, Schwartz was Vice President of New Media Systems & Technology at Atari Corporation, where he invented GameFilm technology for videogame applications, and served as a principal engineer of the Atari Jaguar CD peripheral. Prior to Atari, Schwartz headed the software team at Tandy Research that developed the first erasable CD recorder/player. Schwartz started CompuSonics Corporation, which went public in 1984. In 1985, CompuSonics introduced the CompuSonics DSP1000, the first consumer digital audio disk recorder. The CompuSonics Video PC MovieMaker, introduced in 1986, demonstrated real-time digital video recording and editing on a desktop PC.
These accomplishments are founded upon a multi-disciplined educational program including Architecture, Engineering and Computer Science for which Schwartz received a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Carnegie Mellon University. Schwartz has also done post-graduate studies in the School of Industrial Administration at Carnegie Mellon.
Schwartz's product, ImOn.comTV, is a turnkey package of server hardware and software that finds its roots in the gaming industry. It enables any website to present interactive television within a standard browser window. Instant Web page access from video, viewer-directed video that branches, automated Web searching, and video on demand are the attributes that define this product. The viewer-directed branching video aspects of the software are derived directly from decision-related game play and were developed to be integrated into Sony PlayStation�2 game environments.
"The ImOn.comTV is a TV station in a box - software in a server - that we believe will become a standard for Internet television," Schwartz says. "The lines between broadcasting and webcasting are disappearing. Soon, all content will flow from one source to multiple receivers - television, computers - it doesn't matter.
"The ImOn.comTV Station packages can put any traditional broadcaster, e-business or content owner into the Internet television business overnight," continues Schwartz. "Companies with libraries of video content will be able to launch specialized Internet television stations using their own video."
ImOn.comTV is comprised of three software suites, and ImaginOn's INOW� hosting service for Internet television stations. Each element is available separately or packaged together as each customers needs dictate.
ImaginOn provides the basic version of its authoring software, ImagineAuthor� Lite, at no charge to any who wish to download it from their site. It can be acquired at http://www.imaginon.com/ content/products/imagin_author/index.html. ImaginAuthor is a PC-based authoring tool for creating interactive TV entertainment and informational products. Featuring drag and drop diagrams for total control of multiple playback paths through the video database, ImaginAuthor supports seamless multiple-branching of digital video at 30 frames per second from CD, DVD, Web servers, or any combination of local and remote data streams. Fully integrated Internet access makes Web pages pop up immediately from embedded links. Titles created with ImaginAuthor will play on PCs, Macs, Unix-based servers and Sony PlayStation 2.
ImaginAuthor Lite comes with several sample templates that give users a taste of how easy it is to build their own viewer directed branching video presentations. The interface is a simple flowchart set-up, simply drag and drop your video clips in the appropriate spot, imbed any URLs you may want in certain sections and slip in any sub-titles you want then click on export. With the Lite version, templates cannot be expanded or edited, but you need not use all branches in the chart; anything left empty will be ignored. The video may branch as often as every two seconds; with the Lite version, if you do not specify a URL association with a clip, it will default to ImaginOn's site. Actual customers of the ImOn.comTV product may have custom templates developed, as well as fully-customized viewer skins designed to fit with their own company's iconography.
Another benefit of having Mr. Schwartz deliver the demonstration for us was that the information he provided is somewhat more up to date than what is available on his company's website. For example, the website reports that ImaginAuthor supports MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and QuickTime�, but fails to mention that it also supports RealNetworks� and Windows MediaPlayer� as well. (Schwartz did mention that their sites were in the process of being revamped, which is certainly adequate explanation for such a disparity.)
It is possible with ImaginAuthor Lite to create your own branching video presentations and incorporate them into your sites or marketing campaigns without ever giving one red cent to ImaginOn, but your presentations would be limited to what you could create with the sample templates. Also, you would likely find yourself running low on server resources from the space and bandwidth demands of the presentations. This is, of course, just what ImaginOn is counting on. By providing ImaginAuthor Lite for free and getting you hooked on the idea of fully interactive video catalogues and entertainment presentations, they stand ready with ImOn.comTV to provide full realization of your dreams.
The next element in the ImOn.comTV package is called sellONstream�, viewer-directed Internet Television infomercials that connect to your webpages mastered onto CDs or DVDs. The sellONstream Video E-Commerce Solution has five components. Four of these components are on the CD-ROM itself: Digital Video, Website Linklist, ImaginEngine�, and a software installation program. The fifth component is your website, located on your own host computer. Your website may already exist, complete with an electronic purchasing page, or ImaginOn will build one for you from the ground up.
The third element in the ImOn.comTV omnibus is the WebZinger� Internet research engine. WebZinger is billed as "the world's first and only online research engine, fully automated and hands-free." Users type in whatever they're researching; WebZinger locates websites by topic, visits and analyzes each site, downloads graphics and text, and then formats it all into a browsable, printable report. As with the other elements of the ImOn.comTV package, WebZinger can be customized to suit the specific needs of each individual client.
Finally, the ImOn.comTV Internet TV Station in a Box is completed with ImaginOn's INOW Internet hosting services. With solutions and services as wide and varied as any other ISP, INOW adds the security of having your Internet TV station hosted and serviced by the very entity that developed the software that created it.
To explore examples of ImOn.comTV stations, visit http://www.imon.com/guide.html; this guide to various Internet TV stations gives examples of the various formats used, as well as variations on the end-goals.
Pricing is divided into four levels, with corresponding divisions for optional hosting service prices. A turnkey hardware and software system for a 320-stream capacity system is $35,000. At this level, optional hosting service is $500 a month, with an additional cost of 5 cents per hour per 24kbps stream. A 1280-stream capacity system is $50,000 with optional hosting services costing the same as the previous level. A 3200-stream capacity system is $84,000 and the optional hosting costs double to $1,000 per month with the same 5 cents per hour per 24kbps stream. The fourth level is for 6400-stream capacity systems and beyond; ImaginOn must be contacted for pricing information at this level.
To purchase ImaginOn software, call 800.313.1260. ImaginOn's offices are located at 1313 Laurel St., San Carlos, CA 94070. Additional contact information is available at the company's website at www.imaginon.com, or e-mail [email protected].
For a deeper understanding of the Imaginon product, please try this "Interactive Demo".
