I have been looking at different clients to share my content from my home computers to my mobile devices and one of the best I have tried is ZumoDrive. Today, they announced a new service called ZumoCast that is designed to let you enjoy your personal video collection on the go with your iPad or iPhone. Their previous client was focused on music, photos, and files while this client starts out with a focus on video content. Streaming video is a popular experience on the iPad that I use all the time with Netflix and the ABC Player as I wait for a SlingPlayer client. ZumoCast lets you stream video from your connected PC or Mac to your device with the ability to also selectively sync and download video content for offline video viewing.
ZumoDrive is a solution where you upload and then stream content from a ZumoDrive server, but ZumoCast turns your own computer into the cloud part so that there are no size limitations or additional costs for large storage. You will need a good connection on both ends though to enjoy a good video experience. I tested this out a bit with my WiFi iPad, but do not have a 3G iPad and if you do then you need to make sure you watch those data caps. Video played well and was automatically transcoded to fit the device and speed of the connection. I will try to post some video and more thoughts on this service soon.
Over the rest of this year, ZumoCast and ZumoDrive will start to become more integrated since they use the same Hybrid Cloud Technology. Zumo stated:
This Hybrid Cloud Technology includes two innovations particular to personal video consumption through ZumoCast. First, Cloud-Assisted, Peer-to-Peer Streaming ensures the accessibility and security of personal content from any location regardless of firewalls, communication protocols or connectivity levels that may exist there. Second, On-Demand Adaptive Transcoding removes the need for video to be encoded to a particular format prior to viewing on a device. Rather, ZumoCast handles the transcoding and streaming on demand in real time, automatically adjusting to the best possible quality supported by a user’s connection and device.
The result of this technology is a rather seamless experience for the end user. They are working on clients for other platforms too and I imagine we will see an Android version next. If you want to get in on the beta of this new ZumoCast service, then follow me over on Twitter and I will share some codes for those who ask, until I run out of access codes.
