by Gary Welz, Tangent Design
RealVideo
by Gary Welz, Tangent Design
This week Progressive Networks, the creators of RealAudio, announced the release of their streaming video client/server products RealVideo.Rob Glaser, founder and CEO of Progressive Networks says, "RealAudio catalyzed the market for streaming audio. Now we're doing the same thing with streaming video."
RealVideo offers high-quality live and on-demand streaming audio and video. Streaming video can be seen on connections as slow as 28.8 Kbps. I used the player on a 56K connection and was very impressed with the quality of the audio and found the video to be as good or better than the principle competitors, VDO and Xing Streamworks.
Glaser acknowledges that there are established products in the streaming video market, but feels that RealVideo can leverage the brand awareness that RealAudio has established, "We're building off an installed base of 15 million users of RealAudio. The video products can all be regarded as seamless upgrades of the audio products. The new server and client will work with all old RealAudio content."
Progressive claims that RealVideo is the first "Feature-Complete Cross-Platform Video Broadcast Solution for the Web." They offer RealVideo players and servers for all major operating systems. On the client side it works with Windows, Macintosh, UNIX, WebTV, and other Web-enabled devices. On the server side, it runs on Windows NT and several different UNIX programs.
The video features include:
- Live and on-demand video
- Scalability up to 500 simultaneous streams and the ability to "cluster" servers together for thousands of simultaneous streams
- Buffered Play, a feature that allows video and audio to be played at bandwidth rates substantially higher than their connection rate would normally allow
- Video Mapping, which allows developers to place"'videos within videos," adding greater interactivity and user control. This means users can scan ahead or search the video much as they would with a VCR remote control.
- A wide choice of tools and platforms for creating and distributing audio and video.
The EasyStart RealVideo Server line offers a basic RealVideo server for as little as $295. For $495 you can obtain a combination RealAudio and RealVideo server that delivers up to 10 simultaneous streams. The Professional Server System line starts at $4,995 and delivers high transmission reliability and broadcast scalability.
The RealPlayer 4.0, which plays both RealAudio and RealVideo, is available for free download. The RealPlayer 4.0 Plus, which includes extra features that personalize and customize your multimedia news and entertainment content, can be purchased for $29.99.
Progressive has developed relationships with over 60 content creators and is actively promoting experimentation in the new medium of Webcast video.
In fact, they engaged Spike Lee to create three short films expressly for viewing in RealVideo in association with the RealVideo launch. Glaser says that they did that for a number of reasons, but primarily "to throw down the gauntlet to content creators and say, hey, this is a new medium. It has its own characteristics the same way that TV did, that radio did, that film did. We pose the question, who's going be the Orson Welles and create the 'War of the Worlds' of this medium, or the Al Jolsen and create 'The Jazz Singer' of this medium."
