An Alberta-based company is touting a new technology with claims that it will allow HD video to be more easily streamed and downloaded over the Internet.

CSC Global Technologies says its new CANVID format allows much greater compression of video than formats such as MPEG-2.

CANVID can squeeze three to four gigabytes, or about two hours, of video down to about 250 to 400 megabytes – one-fifth the size of what the same footage would take up as an MPEG-2, the current standard for DVDs, says CSC CTO Lee Bradford.

That same file could be downloaded in 10 to 20 minutes over a cable modem, making delivery of HD files practical for consumers.

‘Whether you’re a network, a broadcaster, cable company or studio, we will enable you with our technology to do more with your video content than you’re currently capable of doing,’ says George Gonzo, SVP of sales and marketing. ‘We would like to become the de facto standard for video compression on the Internet.’

Gonzo, a former marketing exec at CTV, demonstrated the technology for the first time at the Banff World Television Festival and says response was overwhelmingly positive.

CSC has also shown it privately to unnamed major broadcasters, a record label and a phone company, though it has not announced any sales.

A demonstration is available at www.truenetmedia.com. Video can be shown full-screen at normal DVD or HD resolution, provided the viewing device supports it.

The CANVID codec (‘compressor/decompressor’) was developed by the privately held company at a cost of ‘several million’ dollars over five-and-a-half years, according to company officials.

Gonzo bills it as a solution for smaller producers who can’t get traditional distribution but want to reach a worldwide market.

CSC is signing deals with independent producers and prodcos, says Gonzo, and has launched a video-on-demand service, hollyflicks.com, that already boasts a catalog of 11,000 CANVID features, though the titles are mostly B- and C-listers so far.

Cold cash for Ice Planet

The new sci-fi series Ice Planet, a Canada/U.K. copro from Toronto’s SpaceWorks Entertainment, was among the shows named in the latest round of financing from the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund.

Ice Planet features Michael Ironside (ER, Starship Troopers) leading a group of people trying to survive on a frozen alien planet, and will come with game versions for cell phones and the Xbox 360.

Produced by Silver Birch Studios, the phone game is a hybrid of top-down, side-scrolling based on elements from the show, and will debut with the Space series in November. The Xbox 360 game will be released at the end of the 22-ep season. Its producer has not been named.

‘This is a wonderful endorsement of what we think is going to be the future of television.’ says SpaceWorks CEO Philip Jackson. ‘All our television product going forward is going to have simultaneous releasing of downloadable entertainment/games along with the series.’

Other companies and titles that got funding include:

* Cellar Door Productions/Sinking Ship Productions for the Treehouse series Are We There Yet?.

* Tribute II Productions for Chiefs and Champions, a six-part series about exceptional aboriginal athletes.

* Summerhill Productions Four/Lifecapture Media for the auto smash-up Crash Addicts.

* The Fundamental Freedoms Project, a documentary about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by Sailor Jones Media.

* CCI Productions for the preschooler Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs.

* Nerd Corps Entertainment/Bitcasters for the comedy-action toon Storm Hawks.

The $8-million Bell Fund grants production and development funding three times a year to projects that cover both TV and new media.

Teen reality tops at nextMEDIA

Three widely varying works divvied up $10,000 in prize money at last month’s nextMEDIA conference and its contest for short-form digital content. First place was handed to producer Evan Jones for Totally Interactive Drama Island, a multi-part animated TV and online lampoon of a teen reality show.

Second place went to Jacqueline Nuwame of the Canadian Film Centre for the interactive true story The Hanging of Angelique, while producer Rawl Banton took third for the improv comedy Bloke Stymie.

The nextMEDIA conference ran last month in Alberta alongside the Banff World Television Festival.

Spider gets stuck

It turns out Spider Riders is more popular than its producers knew, after a recent promotion for a game based on the boyish adventure cartoon all but crashed the spiderriders.com server.

Producers at Montreal’s Cookie Jar Entertainment never expected the game to be such a hit.

‘It’s good and bad,’ says Ken Locker, senior VP of digital media. ‘It’s great that we got so much interest. We were not really expecting that much and we had obviously underestimated the popularity of the [show].’

Normally, the site handles as many as 500,000 hits and 15,000 simultaneous sessions, but the June 10-11 promo for the game – marking the show’s debut on Kids WB in the U.S. – generated two million hits and 60,000 simultaneous sessions. This slowed the databases on the servers to a standstill. The series also airs here on Teletoon and in Japan.

The situation may yet get hairier. Cookie Jar recently won Bell Fund money to make a multiplayer game based on the show. It’s due out around January.

Not to worry, says, Locker. ‘We bought another server.’