Sorenson Media today announced a significant expansion of its Sorenson Spark licensing program as a result of accelerating market demand and proliferation of Internet video. Sorenson Spark is the Internet's most widely deployed video codec, powering hundreds of millions of Internet videos, including those on YouTube, the volume leader in online video streaming. Companies looking to add video functionality to mobile phones and other consumer electronic devices - including those bringing video into the living room - must have the Sorenson Spark video decoder to enable users to playback that full world of Internet video.

As part of its announcement, Sorenson Media named new licensing partners for its Sorenson Spark video decoder. Ittiam and NXP Semiconductors are among the latest companies to license Sorenson Spark from Sorenson Media - joining Qualcomm, Verizon, Sony, YouTube and numerous others - to enable Internet video on consumer electronic devices, including the new generation of high-performance, low-power, multimedia-rich mobile phones, mobile computing devices, set-top boxes and Internet-connected TVs.

"The Sorenson Spark decoder has become ubiquitous in the embedded space," said Shantanu Jha, vice president media processing at Ittiam Systems. "Because of this, we saw a critical need to enable Sorenson Spark video decoding on our vast multimedia application array."

Sorenson Media's Sorenson Spark Software Developers Kit (SDK) enables developers to integrate the Sorenson Spark decoder into a wide array of programmable chipsets and semiconductors. The SDK is designed to provide Sorenson Spark decoding on any platform, including custom silicon.

"Industry-leading consumer electronic device manufacturers are greatly enriching the Internet video experience for their customers by licensing the Sorenson Spark video decoder," said Peter Csathy, president and CEO of Sorenson Media. "We are seeing phenomenal growth in the number of ways people can watch Web video, and we are still only in the early innings of the Internet video revolution. The Sorenson Spark video decoder is a must-have to enable consumers to enjoy the full world of Internet video."