Remember the old Kodak drive-thrus? Well, eEncoding .com, a successful Web site that converts film and digital clips into streaming media files, is developing a site that capitalizes on the Fotomat idea with a twist — clients will be able to drop their digital media files on the Web site, and have them automatically converted to a streaming format.
The new Web site, called MediaUpgrade.com, will convert download-only media files like those in the AVI, WAV or QuickTime formats, to streaming media files that can be played on streaming media players like RealPlayer or Windows Media Player.
MediaUpgrade.com is positioning itself as an automated streaming media encoding service. Clients can upload their digital files to the site and MediaUpgrade.com will transcode(change one digital format into another) files without having anyone touch any kind of film.
Although individual users can take advantage of the service, Tom Plaster, product manager for MediaUpgrade.com said the service is aimed more at small to medium-sized businesses with a large volume of digital files to have transcoded, thus bypassing the usual in-house production mess that accompanies the transcoding process.
The service will be officially unveiled at the RealNetworks Conference in San Francisco this May.
