Streaming Live Multicasting Ready for the Wires

Multicast Technologies announced today that their company is offering commercial streaming solutions for multicasting live events from remote locations. The company is now licensing this patented technology to companies interested in delivering audio and in the very near future "near-broadcast-quality video." Right now, Multicast offers live and prerecorded webcasts as well as pay-per-view events through the use of multicasting. Multicast's testbed audio station, On-The-I.com has been letting musicians multicast live from concert venues in the Washington, D.C. area. Live streaming audio doesn't sound all that groundbreaking. I can listen to a gazillion different radio stations and can hear the announcer (talking live) just fine. Broadcast quality video would be much cooler, enabling you to watch a ball game or a live music event online. Right now, even streaming recording video tends to be a bit herky-jerky. Apparently, Multicast's system conserves bandwidth by only streaming when a user requests it. In other words, it doesn't send out a flood of data waiting to be diverted to different locations, but conserves bandwidth by only sending out what it needs to specific locations.