GlobalStreams: Turning from Play to Business

Despite his youthful appearance, GlobalStreams president/CEO TedBriscoe boasts an impressive resume that would seem beyond his years.As president/COO of Ask Jeeves, he pulled the Internet Q&A sitefrom its unimpressive 312th ranking to a lofty 12th spot. Before that,he helped drive Iomega into a $2 billion industry leader and led salesand marketing efforts for Apple’s non-PC applications, includingthe Newton.

Today, he has another big job in front of him—to take the bestassets of a defunct company with a tarnished street rep, and turn theminto gold. That defunct company in question is the former PlayIndustries.

Only a few NABs ago, Play caught the imagination of the new digitalconverts at the annual broadcasters’ fest. A breakaway companyfrom outsider software guru NewTek, Play touted Trinity, an all-in-one“television station in a box” solution, and GlobeCaster,the Internet broadcast “TV production studio in a box.”More than just a vendor, Play also took the lead in producing contentfor the Web in the form of its signature live web show, with companyfront woman Kiki Stockhammer as the on screen star. The show wasproduced entirely with the PC-based, all-in-one Trinity.

After riding high for a few NABs, however, Play began to suffer thebends from its precipitous rise to fame. The distance between theheightened expectations that Play had been so skillful at creating andits own inability to deliver on that exaggerated promise became toogreat for even the most credulous and optimistic to support. It wastime for a fall.

Enter an experienced executive management team, with Briscoe at thehelm. Excited over the possibilities of rich media, they ran into Playand were drawn to the company’s “Swiss army knife forbroadcasting.” From Briscoe’s point of view, Play’sdownfall was due to a variety of circumstances, not the least of whichwas being caught short when the market shifted. But, says Briscoe,“Play had a wonderful engineering vision,” and he wasdetermined to not let that vision fade away.

Other members of the management team include Charlie Finnie, formerVolpe Brown Whelan (now Prudential Volpe Technology Group) InternetAnalyst and David Hellier, former Ask Jeeves vice president ofmarketing, joining as executive vice presidents. Mike Moore, former CEOand chairman of the board of Play Industries, serves asGlobalStreams’ senior fellow and company director. Former CFO ofIntranet Communications Corporation Tim Hosler is now thecompany’s CFO and Ask Jeeves co-founder/former CTO David Warthenis the company’s CTO.

The group struck a deal for exclusive licensing of GlobeCaster,calling themselves the Play Streaming Media Group. Electric Image, thepopular Macintosh-based animation system, spun off on its own, making areturn appearance as a standalone company at NAB 2001. As for theflamboyant Kiki, she’s apparently left the high tech business topursue a career in Hollywood.

Next came the first round of financing, to the tune of $22 million,led by Highland Capital Partners, with ComVentures, Gateway Associatesand several private investors.

“Broadcasting is a proven medium to communicate and buildrelationships,” said Briscoe. “Given the current state ofthe market, the kind of funding we’ve received validates that acomprehensive production, presentation, and delivery approach forbroadcasting will continue to be attractive to leading companies. Thefunding allows us to provide a more effective solution to existingbroadcasters and to support the creation of a new category ofbroadcasters who can now strengthen customer relationships and reducebusiness costs.”

The Play Streaming Media Group changed its name to GlobalStreamswhen, in February 2001, the company acquired key assets of the St.Louis, Missouri-based GlobalStreams, a company that pioneered one ofthe first entirely broadband-focused media guides.

The new GlobalStreams made NAB 2001 the place and time to unveilmany of their new directions and products, which build on the Playengineering legacy and technology. “Play contributed the accessto technology and the name,” explains Briscoe, who points outthat the company currently holds 10 U.S. patents, with 10 additionalU.S. patent applications pending in the fields of video, graphics andanimation.

At an NAB 2001 reseller event that drew 200 domestic andinternational Trinity resellers, GlobalStreams introduced themselves asthe new company and revealed that Trinity 2.4 was the last version ofTrinity produced. Globalstreams has ceased manufacturing this product.Trinity upgrades and replacement parts will continue to be availablethrough GlobalStreams at least until May 2002, at which point, based onmarket demand, the company will determine how to proceed.

For Trinity aficionados, that might have been the bad news. But thegood news soon followed. GlobalStreams emphasized its commitment toserving as a bridge for broadcasters and videographers and betweentraditional media and the Internet. In that vein, the company announcedits new family of solutions, including GlobeCaster Live, GlobeCasterPost, and GlobeCaster Studio.

Perhaps more important to the Trinity crowd, GlobalStreams alsoannounced an upgrade path to allow current Trinity owners to transitionto GlobeCaster technology, providing compatibility with GlobeCastersoftware and future product development and enhancements.

Unveiling the GlobeCaster product family, GlobalStreams built on thecompany’s flagship technology, the all-in-one broadcastproduction solution GlobeCaster, and expanded the line to includeGlobeCaster Live and GlobeCaster Post. Both of these new solutions areaimed at the broadcast market, offering “customized suites oftools and technology designed to enable companies to cost-effectivelycreate high quality live and post-produced content.”

“We are excited to offer this expanded line of solutions at atime when the industry is looking for both affordable, high-qualitytechnology as well as new methods for fully leveraging content across aspectrum of delivery options,” said Briscoe. “OurGlobeCaster family of products is intended to meet an evolving needamong broadcasters for the necessary television-quality broadcastingtools with additional digital and streaming capabilities, all at aprice they can afford.”

As broadcasters search for ways to cut costs and become moreefficient, GlobalStreams’ position is that they can help byreducing the cost of equipment and the number of people necessary toproduce a broadcast, by providing an easy-to-use solution with all thetools found in a traditional studio environment.

The new GlobeCaster line integrates numerous components key to astudio setting, including a multi-camera digital switcher, real-timecharacter generator, paint, animation and compositing tools, linear andnon-linear editing systems, real-time 3D digital video effects, amultiple-input digital audio mixer, and fully digital streaming videoencoding capability for both Microsoft Windows Media Player andRealPlayer video formats.

The Product Line

A closer look at each of the products reveals how GlobalStreams hasengineered its solutions to meet the stated goal. A live multi-layeredreal-time broadcast production solution that produces graphicsanimation layers happening in real-time, GlobeCaster Live includesuser-selected four-input multi-format digital component productionswitcher with three output options, one real-time 3D digital videoeffects engine, one downstream key (DSK) animation graphics engine,real-time character generator, animation and paint compositing tools,starting at a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of$24,995.

GlobeCaster Post is a post production system that comes with two andsupports up to four input options as well as two output options, onereal-time 3D digital video effects engine, dedicated dual streamlinear/nonlinear editor, two DSK graphic animation engines, real-timesub-nanosecond character generator, and the paint, animation andcompositing tools standard on all units. GlobeCaster Post starts at themanufacturer’s suggested retail price of $27,995.

GlobeCaster Studio is the all-in-one broadcast production studiospanning live to post-production broadcasting. It comes with a host PCand options to purchase training, upgrades, and extended service,support and Internet broadcast consulting services. Its specificationsinclude eight input multi-format digital component production switcherwith four output options, one real-time 3D digital video effectsengine, nonlinear and linear editor, animation and paint compositingtools and is expandable to four DSK animation engines and two 3Ddigital video effects engines, starting at a manufacturer’ssuggested retail of $31,995.

All the GlobeCaster products share similar fundamental qualities:they allow the broadcaster to build an entire studio in a small space;they are all easy to transport, easy to learn, with the capability ofone-person operation; hardware and software have been designed togetherfor optimal performance and all the products can output to cable,satellite or the Internet. All GlobeCaster systems are compatible withall major video formats (Composite, S-Video (Y/C), Component RGB/YUV,Serial Digital 601/625, and VTRs that support RS-422 control). AllGlobeCaster models support outputs ranging from analog to componentdigital SDI (SMPTE 259M/D1) in both NTSC/525 and PAL/625 formats aswell as standard Internet streaming formats such as 160x120 and 320x240at up to 30 frames per second.

Corporate Broadcasting

With this family of products, GlobalStreams aims to introduce“a new way for companies to communicate.”

“Our philosophy is simple,” says Briscoe. “Reducethe cost and complexity of creating and distributing one of the mostproven communications mediums available – the televisionbroadcast – and use it to improve reach and access. We believecompanies and institutions can improve relationships with their keyaudiences and decrease costs by using television-quality broadcasts,over cable, satellite and the Internet, to distribute informational andentertaining content.”

What Briscoe is referring to is the potential uses the corporateworld will have for communicating and training employees, staying intouch with customers worldwide, or launching Internet-basedentertainment ventures. Whether it’s streamlining currentbusiness or creating new revenue opportunities, GlobalStreams’Briscoe believes this cost-effective all-in-one studio is the key toenabling companies and corporations to “produce, present anddeliver” compelling media. GlobalStreams is doing just that forcompanies like Cisco, educational institutions like the University ofOklahoma, and government units such as the Center for Disease Control(CDC).

“We learned from working with Yahoo that people don’twant to watch TV on the Internet,” he explains. “But tobuild a wrapper or presentation around the video information…anew kind of TV. It’s important for people pushing a businessmessage, and the presentation know-how from GlobalStreams has allowedus to create those wrappers, templates for clients. We’reincluding this service as well as bundling other services, such ashosting bandwidth via a partnership with Navi-site.”

“We’re not just a product company,” he stresses.“Our core management capability is applying our expertise tosolving problems.”

Future plans include, once the core broadcasting business is wellestablished, leveraging the technology in non-PC broadcastingenvironments, or appliances. Another aim will be “to look forways to move away from hardware to software.” In the meantime,GlobalStreams has a job vying for the mindshare of entertainmentcompanies and corporations looking for product production and deliverytools. Briscoe believes GlobalStreams will be able to be differentiatedin the marketplace.

“We’re trying to stay focused on delivering solutions,not just hardware,” he says. “With our all-in-oneproduction suite which reduces the cost of buying and operating,we’re putting a flag in the ground. And we think that people willrespond to it.”

Debra Kaufman is a freelance writer based in Venice, CA.