Tuned in late to the Internet broadcast of the last Presidential debates? Missed the opening pitch on the streaming coverage of the World Series? Need to replay the live shower scene with Jenna Jameson and the three midgets on horseback hanging off elastic purple bungee cords that...you get the idea.

San Francisco-based Burst.com has developed a new live version of its popular "Burstware" streaming technology. Targeted at entertainment content providers and delivery networks with existing live media delivery services, "Burstware Live" enables live Internet broadcasts to be paused, rewound and fast-forwarded (up to the current point) through existing desktop media players. The new feature adds to Burstware's existing scalable architecture for multimedia delivery and management, which delivers data in "faster than real-time" bursts to ensure uninterrupted, jitter-free video and audio over the Internet.

"What we're doing is extending our product line to the live arena through unicast (delivering a separate stream of data for each user)," says Michael Moskowitz, VP of Product Marketing at Burst. "This is not a multicast product. It brings control to each individual viewer of the live stream."

Thanks to the Internet, Moskowitz says it does not matter when a user tunes into a stream. Unlike television-based replay systems like Tivo and ReplayTV, which only offer a fixed recovery time for the channel a user happens to be watching at the time, Burstware Live-enabled broadcasts can offer viewers essentially a limitless time spec and channel access, so no matter when or where a viewer tunes in they will be able to rewind to the beginning of a stream on any "channel."

"The data is being stored on a central server," explains Moskowitz. "So there's really no limit. And we guarantee quality of service for broadband."

Moskowitz says companies typically license Burst's technology for use in their own delivery networks, paying Burst based on the number of concurrent users they wish to satisfy. Burst also offers the option of buying space on its own network, wherein companies pay a varying rate based on the amount of viewers served and the amount of time viewers watched a stream.

The new Burstware Live service officially debuts tomorrow at Internet World in New York.

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