Hypnotizer Joins the Interactive Streaming Battle

We all know that most streaming audio and video today fails to unleash the interactive capabilities of the Internet. It's not for a lack of technologies — there are plenty out there vying for market share. However, engineering solutions that are compatible across the major streaming clients are clearly wanting. A small company called Hypnotizer is making a stab at filling the gap with its interactive media player/editor/server software suite — called Hypnotizer.suite.

Interactivity is all about the money — making it simpler for visitors to buy through interactive advertisements either as primary or as coordinated supplemental content. Interactivity can also be about increasing stickiness by, for example, letting people jump to scenes they like in a video or make other decisions about the stream they're enjoying. But at the end of the day stickiness is really about the money too.

Hypnotizer.suite enables user interface controls and linkable graphics to be superimposed, rather than embedded, over a video stream. The free Windows-only (for now) Hypnotizer.player is required to view enhanced media streams and can view most QuickTime, Windows Media Player and RealPlayer compatible formats. Hypnotizer.editor is a well-designed and easy-to-use application for creating XML-based menus, buttons, and banners within or on the borders of a video stream. The editor is available for $360 with 100 hosted "streams" at www.hypnotizer.com. And Hypnotizer.server, presently available only as a service (thus the need to purchase "streams"), rounds out Hypnotizer.suite as a means of delivering Hypnotizer content in tandem with familiar video streaming servers.

Hypnotizer.player

Hypnotizer.player is a small plug-in for the big three media players. Through its Cortinarius engine (aren't fancy technology names adorable?), Hypnotizer.player can coordinate, display and synchronize Hypnotizer interactive content and video streams. The player itself doesn't have any inherent controls like stop, pause, and play; those can be created with Hypnotizer.editor and put into the Hypnotizer.player window.

Hypnotizer.player windows look like a typical browser pop-up window, with content being streamed within. Hypnotizer.player windows can be embedded into Web pages, as well. The player runs on Microsoft Windows 95/98/NT/2000 and Internet Explorer 4 or higher, or Netscape Navigator 4 or higher.

In my testing, the player installed itself and ran successfully without problems or intervention. However, the player was a much larger download than is generally expected for plug-ins. I'd say it's more like installing another media player. A lot of users, particularly those on 56Kbps modem connections, could get frustrated and quit the process — unless they're really excited about what you're offering to present to them, or they happen to be patient geeks (like me). On the plus side, the Hypnotizer overlay controls look natural and pleasant on the video, not at all awkward as I'd suspected they might.

Hynotizer.editor

With Hypnotizer.editor, content authors can create media presentations with navigation tools and graphic enhancements. The editor has a WYSIWYG style interface, with file tabs to toggle between the main scene, the XML-based source code produced, and a preview of the final project. Typically, you select a video or audio file to run in the background, and then begin to layer user interface widgets on top of your media file. Inserting objects, events and timers is easy and intuitive. Because the layout is logical and the help documentation excellent, a content author wouldn't have to spend a lot of time learning this user interface.

There is a wide range of user interface and image enhancements that Hypnotizer.editor can create. Events such as "onclick" and "onmouseover" start the interactive ball rolling. Pull-down menus can link to external Web pages or trigger text and image content internally. Timers can display and/or remove objects at a specific time during a stream. Strong capabilities in this area make Hypnotizer a good choice for advertising and branding within a video stream.

Media files that can play in synch with a Hypnotizer stream include all of the recent versions of Windows Media Player, RealPlayer and QuickTime, as well as a number of other codecs and/or technologies. GIF (not animated), JPEG, PNG and TGA images can be used as linkable graphics. Hypnotizer.editor provides a tool to edit images and adjust transparency, something that is especially useful when you want graphics, buttons, and menus to reside on top of your video stream.

Hypnotizer.editor produces HSML (Hypnotizer Stream Markup Language), an XML-based markup language. The code-savvy can edit this to get advanced results from their media presentations. In addition, having a media display format that outputs to a simple markup language opens up opportunities for database-driven dynamic updates.

Hynotizer.server

When a media presentation is ready to go live, Hynpnotizer.editor provides a publish function that works in conjunction with Hypnotizer.server. The publish function has features for validating code and setting up multiple channels.

The way Hypnotizer.server works is this: Through the editor you can set up a connection to Hypnotizer's HTTP servers to stream the Hypnotizer portion of your presentation. Within Hypnotizer.editor you can link the background media file of your media presentation to your streaming video server. When a user clicks on a link to your Hynpotizer media presentation, Hypnotizer.player synchronizes the interactive graphics with the video stream. Hypnotizer.server is available on a pay-per-stream basis.

This is presently the weakest link in Hypnotizer product line, not because it doesn't work, but because it is only available as a pay-per-stream black box service. The inability of customers to host the software themselves, or even for an ISP or CDN to host the software, combined with the need to host video streams independently, make this a particularly convoluted solution at present. This will change if/when a gold version of the Hypnotizer.server, along with documentation, is released. Current plans call for release this summer. Until then, Hypnotizer will work with interested ISPs to install the hypnotizer.server beta software and train them hands-on in lieu of the documentation that will accompany the shipping version.

While the architecture of Hypnotizer's servers handling the interactive stuff while your servers handle the streaming video is awkward, it does provide the benefit of allowing you to use the technology on an exploratory basis.

Hypnotizer.conclusion

When choosing strategic technology in a nascent market, companies should be very wary of embracing a technology that could fall by the wayside in a market shakeout. The more proprietary the solution, and the larger the engineering effort required to implement it; the bigger the risk. For that reason, interested customers may want to begin with a small one-time campaign rather than a large commitment to the technology.

With that in mind, Hypnotizer.suite is fully implementable today and it does provide a very powerful capability to author and deploy interactivity. If a simple banner and additional text info are all you need to augment your media stream, you are better off embedding your stream in a Web page, and putting enhancements outside the borders of your media. But if lower costs and Mac client support aren't must-haves, or aren't as important as the ability to easily create compelling interactivity, Hypnotizer.suite can deliver a deep stream rich with potentially engaging controls for the user.