Are You Ready For The "Streaming Meemies?" - Product Information

Computer Technology Review, July, 2000 by George McNamara

Streaming2l launched itself onto an unsuspecting world June 27 riding on a gurney piled high with products that stream DVD quality MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video and MP3 audio via the Internet to PCs, set-top boxes, handhelds, and mobile phone devices. I don't know how well they will deliver on their promises, but they sure know how to market them... I haven't seen this many dancing sylphs in one brochure since the Kirov touted "Giselle." Since I have to rely on the glowing reports of my colleague, Mark Ferelli, who saw the demo, I'll just content myself with the facts as disseminated by Streaming2l.

Streaming21 Suite Of Products

MEDIA SERVER supports multiple bandwidths from 28.8Kbps to 16Mbps and standard compression formats such as MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MP3, ASF, and AVI. It's a carrier-class video on demand server that delivers multimedia through the standalone player or through the embedded Web client. The scalable server supports load balancing optimization and is fault-tolerant.

MEDIA CASTER encodes live audio and video and broadcasts MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 up to 30 frames per second. As content is being encoded, it can be broadcast live and stored for on-demand playback. Media Caster utilizes Microsoft's Media Encoder to support ASF streams for dialup modem connections.

MP3 SERVER offers a scalable MP3 streaming solution from 32Kbps to 320Kbps with a single server capable of supporting up to 1500 simultaneous 128Kbps MP3 streams and integrates with multiple servers. This server incorporates functions such as license control, rights management, a Java-based remote management console, and load balancing between multiple processors and servers.

STREAMING PLAYER comes bundled with the above. It receives and displays streaming media at the various devices. It supports a variety of existing formats, including those mentioned before, and DAT. It's built on a proprietary transport mechanism that ensures superior quality even at slow connections. It is easy to integrate and embed into Web pages with a fully customizable OCX interface.

MEDIA SERVER costs $5,000, MEDIA CASTER $1,695, and MP3 SERVER $1,295. STREAMING PLAYER is free. Sound pricey? Maybe, but sylphs never come cheap.