San Franciso, California-based video-capturing specialists Supermac Technology Inc and multimedia software company Asymetrix Corp of Bellevue, Washington have announced a joint technology and marketing agreement to exploit the new Microsoft Corp Video for Windows market. Their first offering is a video production package for desktop movie makers called VideoSpigot for Windows that bundles SuperMac’s real-time video-capture board and CompactVideo compression software, Video for Windows digital video software, and three Asymetrix packages Multimedia ToolBook, Multimedia Make Your Point, and MediaBlitz! The bundled software is worth $1,000 but the two companies will be selling it for $500 from December. VideoSpigot enables Windows users to capture full-motion, full-colour video in real time from a television, video camera, laser disk, or VCR. The system automatically digitises and compresses footage on an ordinary hard disk or optical cartridge in Audio Video Interleaved movie file format. It offers users full-motion video capture of up to 15 frames per second in a 320 by 240 window, which SuperMac says is more than twice the frame rate of competing products, or up to 30 frames per second in a 160 by 120-pixel window. The company claims that the CompactVideo compression software enables users to squeeze a full-length movie onto a CD-ROM and so offers more video and play back than any other Windows-based software compression offering.
