One-year-old start-up VXtreme Inc claims it has the only products that can transmit video over the Internet or intranets using low bandwidths while retaining high quality presentation (CI No 2,948). With technology it licensed exclusively from Stanford University, VXtreme is selling a family of products called Web Theater. It consists of server software for streaming video and synchronized content; a 1Mb browser plug-in for Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer with VCR-like controls; and production tools to capture and integrate video, all starting at $2,000. VXtreme has positioned Web Theater to run in the 28.8Kb to 256Kb per second bandwidth sweet spot, claiming that’s the only way for products to be useful for businesses today. The Palo Alto, California-based firm says users will be able to integrate video with their existing Java or HTML-based content and is signing up systems integrators and VARs to develop applications using Web Theater in areas such as employee training and customer service. Web Theater’s key technology is a new compression method, which allows users to view 20 frames per second of 160×120 resolution video using only 28.8Kb per second. The firm supports LiveScreen now and will support conversion of MPEG-1 and QuickTime files to its streaming mechanism in future. Web Theater requires a minimum 133 MHz Pentium machine to encode video and an 80486-class PC to decode. It has 30 beta sites including Sun Microsystems, site developer US Web and CNNfn Online. The plug-in is available for download September 16 and Web Theater ships in October.
