H.264 Codec Support

Panther's Progressive Download Seek (PDSeek) which allows end users to "seek" to any part of a video file is now available for files encoded in H.264. This benefits our customers as they can produce higher quality videos using H.264 encoding and not lose key functionality. Customers will:

• Provide a better video experience with H.264 encoding and save bandwidth costs as it provides a higher quality video at a lower bitrate
• Save bandwidth costs by minimizing wasteful excess CDN usage and reducing bandwidth demand
• Enhance users experience with DVR-like controls and functionality

Many video files are now delivered via HTTP progressive download due to the scalability, performance, economics and ease of set up. By delivering over HTTP, some functionality available with true streaming protocols can be lost, including ability to "jump ahead" to different parts of the video or audio file without waiting for that segment to be downloaded already.

This "seeking" functionality is widely deployed for Flash Video FLV files, but with the upcoming shift to the H.264 codec, seeking is not as simple due to the complexity of the format. H.264 is a video compression technology which provides higher quality video at much lower bit rates than other previous standards. Panther has overcome the limitations of H.264 seeking and now offers PDSeek for H.264 files.