A number of CDN, online video platform and other media infrastructure companies are converging on San Jose, Calif., this week for Streaming Media West, which kicks off tomorrow. Here are some highlights of the announcements made by vendors ahead of the show:

Ooyala Partners With YuMe on Overlays

By partnering with ad monetization firm YuMe Networks, Ooyala will be able to better monetize live video streams with overlay ads as it will enable customers of Ooyala’s white-label video management platform to specify ad insertion points into their live streams. Ooyala has its own set of ad-serving platform and monetization tools for on-demand streams, but the partnership shows its homegrown solution may be lacking when it comes to delivering overlay ads into live streams. While the companies just announced general availability of these services, they say there are already dozens of customers using the combined  Ooyala/YuMe solution for live and on-demand video management as well as ad insertion.

Wowza Partners With Tandberg

The companies said today that Wowza’s streaming media server will be integrated into the Tandberg Content Server, making it the company’s exclusive technology provider for streaming Flash in live and on-demand telepresence and video conference calls, as well as multimedia presentations. While the announcement specifies Tandberg’s use of Wowza for Flash streaming, the Media Server will also enable Tandberg to serve video to other formats, such as Silverlight, or to mobile devices such as the iPhone. Wowza was the media server software used by Livestream, for instance, during its live streaming of the space shuttle Atlantis launch today, as well as NewTeeVee Live last week, both of which were streamed to the iPhone.

Cotendo Updates Its Dynamic Site Acceleration

Cotendo announced an update to its Dynamic Site Acceleration product, which is designed to improve the delivery of static and dynamic content for a wide range of online retailers, ad networks and professional news sites. Unlike most other CDNs, Cotendo’s product is less about delivering large media files than it is about ensuring the quick delivery of dynamic content. Even so, by accelerating the delivery of these files, the company can help publishers boost engagement times and improve the overall user experience.

NewTeeVee at SMW

And check out NewTeeVee co-editor Chris Albrecht tomorrow as he grills representatives from Motorola, Move Networks, HBO Broadband and Boxee about the threat that broadband video poses to traditional cable providers. The panel he’s moderating, entitled “Bridging TV and Broadband and Cutting the Cable,” starts at 4 p.m. PST on Tuesday, Nov. 17.

Comcast-NBC Deal Would Face Heavy Regulatory Scrutiny; regulators might impose restrictions against the companies that would wipe out some of the benefits of the deal. (Wall Street Journal)

Apple Files Patent for Unskippable Ads; the technology is able to freeze a device until the user clicks a button or answers a test question to demonstrate that he or she has watched a commercial. (NY Times)

Warner Music Taps FreeWheel to Monetize Music Videos Online; the partnership allows WMG to manage its ads across a number of online video sites, including YouTube. (MediaPost)

BBC Launches iPlayer Channel On the Wii; the new BBC iPlayer will become a dedicated channel on the gaming console, beginning November 18. (press release)

Microsoft Launching Zune Outside the US; the video service will be available in 18 of the largest western markets, including the UK, France, Germany, and Australia. (Financial Times)

Cartoon Network Introduces Mix-and-Match DVDs; for $20, customers can pick from hundreds of episodes of Robot Chicken, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and other shows to create their own 110-minute personal DVD. (Video Business)

Softkinetic announced today that it has created a joint venture with 3-D camera maker Optrima. The new entity that will offer OEMs an all-in-one hardware and software gesture-control product.

Based in Brussels, Optrima was spun out of the Brussels VUB university and has invented something called Current Assisted Photonic Demodulation (CAPD) 3-D sensing technology. That’s the hardware that can be embedded into something like a television and will “look” out into the room and create a map. When viewers in front of supported TVs move, the camera will understand those movements and Softkinetic software will be able to translate those movements into commands. Softkinetic CEO Michel Tombroff told us in a phone interview that Optima’s technology works by measuring the time it takes for light to bounce back to the sensor, and that the company has patented a technology that requires less illumination and less power.

The joint venture builds on an investment that Softkinetic made in Optrima earlier this year. Tombroff would not specify how much his company invested but said that the total amount of money invested in both Softkinetic and Optrima was over $6 million.

The new company will be called Softkinetic-Optrima and will focus its efforts on developing and manufacturing the hardware. Though this JV will be able to offer this hardware/software combo to OEMs (no specific vendors have been announced yet), Softkinetic still plans on offering its software product to other 3-D sensor makers, like Canesta.

Gesture control is a topic we’ve been covering all year, and we even had Canesta CEO Jim Spare present at the “Next Big Thing” session at our recent NewTeeVee Live conference.