Netflix inks deal with eyeIO to improve streaming & lower bandwidth

Most Netflix users haven't heard of tech start-up eyeIO. The privately-held Palo Alto company has worked behind the scenes to improve the quality and delivery of streaming online video without ratcheting up the required bandwidth. Until now, that is. Netflix and eyeIO formally announced a commercial licensing deal to help the streaming video giant fly under bandwidth caps.

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Under the agreement, eyeIO provides Netflix with its "ultra-low bandwidth coding solution" and "next-gen video encoding technology." Both important factors, seeing how Netflix has expanded to dozens of new countries within the past six months, including Brazil, Mexico, Ireland and the UK.

Maintaining low bandwidth while streaming HD videos in the U.S. and Canada is difficult enough. Now, the company needs to do it in 47 countries with dozens of unique ISPs.

According to eyeIO, its tech can "liberate precious bandwidth and decoding power," which can then be dedicated to other aspects of video streaming, such as multiple language tracks and "more sophisticated DRM."

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"eyeIO provides a straightforward solution for accommodating the rapidly growing demand for video delivery around the world by alleviating the overwhelming bandwidth currently required to stream video," said Rodolfo Vargas, eyeIO CEO.

Keeping bandwidth costs down and video quality up are equally important, said Netflix VP of Product Development Greg Peters.

"eyeIO technology is an important part of the technology we use to improve video quality and overcome bandwidth challenges presented by Internet infrastructure," said Peters.

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Netflix is the only company (so far) to license eyeIO's streaming tech. (via eyeIO)

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