Fulfilling the potential of MMS information services can only be achieved if the images received by the user do justice to the subject. This is the view of Brainstorm’s ceo, Craig Massey, who explained that the majority of service delivery systems don’t allow the image to be optimised for each handset. “The key element for content delivery is the user experience, irrespective of handset and therefore we have concentrated on transcoding and image sizing.”
He went on to explain that becuase the screen sizes and resolutions differ dramatically it is imperative that images are re-sized. However, he said, “Most systems re-size images according to pre-set crops. Effectively what we do is build templates for each and every handset which re-purpose and re-format the image to display it to the best ability. Any cropping is done manually.”
The effect of this was demonstrated by Massey who used the simple example of an image of a goal scored at a football match. The nature of the action means that the vital part of the image could be anywhere on the screen and not necessarily in the middle. It is not predictable and thefrefore an automated crop — centring the image or cropping to pre-set formats — could in a worst case scenario, render the image useless.
The rendering and sizing of images is just a small part of the complete content delivery system offered by Brainstorm and a fuller explanation of this will appear in next month’s content management feature.ETSA ad here