By Erik Kuna

For almost 15 years, Sorenson Media (http://www.sorensonmedia.com) has been a leader in video encoding and compression technology. Building on their success, they’ve developed a new Video Delivery Network (VDN) service, Sorenson 360.

Like other Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), Sorenson 360’s VDN allows for increased preference, quality, and scalability, without the high price of a CDN, such as Akamai or Limelight. Pricing starts at US$99 per month.

Although not for everyone, the 360 is designed for a small- or medium-sized business that needs a reliable way to deliver videos in a customizable player along with accurate metrics. Also, it’s a subscription-based service with users paying by the length of videos and number of “streams” (one stream equals one view).

An interesting thing about 360 is that you don’t need Sorenson Squeeze or any other compression software to use it. You can upload your uncompressed files to 360 and it will compress your video, all over the Internet. Even though I’d rather handle encoding locally, this is a great feature for small businesses that might not have extensive knowledge of video compression. Note: Those users with Squeeze 5.1, however, can compress files locally and upload the videos right to a 360 account without leaving Squeeze. Once the videos are uploaded to 360, you’ll have the ability to customize the player, view detailed metrics, password-protect files for client-specific access, and much more.

Sorenson 360 is really designed for small businesses that are looking for a video CDN alternative and want to step above free or cheaper services (such as YouTube or blip.tv), which require compromises and carry certain “free” behaviors. If you fit into that market, it’s a great service and, even if you don’t, Sorenson will customize a subscription for you.

Rating: 8 out of 10

(This review is brought to you courtesy of "Layers Magazine": http://www.layersmagazine.com ).