Ibexx & all, "Sound, vision invade PCs".
infoworld.com
By Jeff Walsh and Andy Santoni
InfoWorld Electric
Posted at 5:27 AM PT, Feb 14, 1998
Streaming multimedia is moving closer to the enterprise as products from companies such as Microsoft and Intel
are enabled with standards, software, and hardware support.
Next week RealNetworks will deliver a plug-in to Microsoft PowerPoint 97 that will allow presentations to be
produced in RealNetworks' RealVideo format.
In addition to delivering the basic presentation, users can annotate and synchronize audio to the presentation using
RealAudio.
"This tie-in with PowerPoint 97 instantly connects the product with streaming media and legitimizes it for
business purposes," said Jae Kim, an associate analyst at Paul Kagan Associates, in Carmel, Calif.
The PowerPoint plug-in is part of RealNetworks' delivery of RealPublisher 5.1, a product with a $50 price tag that
uses wizards to simplify the creation of streaming media.
Corporate use will also increase as more standards are adopted, and companies no longer are locked into proprietary
technologies. The International Organization for Standardization, commonly known as the ISO, this week adopted
Apple's QuickTime file format as the starting point for creating MPEG-4 as a unified digital media storage format.
Apple received support from industry heavy hitters -- IBM, Netscape, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and Silicon
Graphics -- in proposing the QuickTime file format to the ISO. Microsoft had proposed using its Active
Streaming Format as the basic file format, but the vendors supporting the specification said they chose QuickTime
for its capability to read a variety of existing file formats.
Up until now, end-users have had to re-purpose their media libraries if they switched between products, observers
said.
Attachmate, which used video materials for human resources training, previously stored this material in the
MPEG-2 format. The company then had to decode this material when it decided to standardize on Real Networks'
RealVideo format.
"The fact that there could be a standard that everyone could use would help," said Fred Barrett, manager of
electronic marketing tools at Attachmate, in Bellevue, Wash.
Streaming media is more ubiquitous now that bandwidth constraints and hardware requirements are not as
demanding, Barrett said.
On the hardware side, Intel next week will fete its long-awaited i740 graphics accelerator chip, developed under the
code-name Auburn, at the Intel Developers Forum, in San Jose, Calif.
"The new chip is no faster than today's best 3-D accelerator," said Peter Glaskowsky, a senior analyst at
MicroDesign Resources, in Sunnyvale, Calif. "But it is backed by Intel's powerful marketing machine."
According to Brian Ekiss, graphics marketing manager at Intel, i740-based graphics boards should come from
Asustek, Diamond Multimedia, Leadtek, Number Nine, Real3D, and STB. |
