Mediamatics' MPEG powers Microsoft's Internet explorer 3.0; With software MPEG, Browser delivers TV-like video and CD-quality audio; also fuels ActiveMovie and Windows operating system

Business Wire, August 13, 1996

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 13, 1996-- Mediamatics Inc., the world's largest supplier of software MPEG decoders, announced today that its software MPEG-1 solution is shipping with Microsoft's Internet Explorer(TM) 3.0, also announced today.

With Mediamatics' MPEG technology, this new browser enables desktop PCs to deliver MPEG playback via the Internet. The Internet Explorer accesses Mediamatics' MPEG technology through Microsoft's ActiveMovie(TM) application programming interface (API), a new digital video/audio streaming architecture embedded within the browser application.

As part of a licensing agreement forged in June 1995, Microsoft is bundling Mediamatics' MPEG-1 playback technology in its ActiveMovie API, enabling the API to deliver rich TV-like video and CD-quality audio functionality to desktop PCs.

Additionally, Microsoft is building ActiveMovie components in all new releases of the Windows(TM) operating system.

"After licensing software MPEG technology from Mediamatics in June of 1995, we have worked closely with the Mediamatics team to integrate software MPEG into ActiveMovie, to add DirectX hardware acceleration and to enable Internet progressive downloading," said Paul Osborne, director of multimedia for Microsoft.

"The result is the best quality MPEG playback available, built into ActiveMovie, and included with Internet Explorer today, and soon in all versions of Windows."

This announcement extends the proliferation of MPEG into a broader range of corporate, reference and educational applications, as well as in the existing entertainment arena.

With this expanded audience, Independent Software Developers (ISD's) can now develop enhanced titles that take advantage of MPEG's full motion, VHS-quality video and the efficient video and audio streaming format of the ActiveMovie API.

Industry-wide acceptance of Mediamatics' MPEG products

"The Mediamatics' name is almost synonymous with MPEG," said Jon Peddie, analyst and editor of the JPA PC Graphics Report, Tiburon, Calif. "There are a lot of companies making MPEG decoders, but few companies are as dedicated to MPEG as Mediamatics. Based on unit shipments, Mediamatics has shipped more MPEG decoders to the PC industry than any other company."

In addition to the agreement with Microsoft, Mediamatics' software MPEG technology has achieved industry acceptance by major OEM, system and graphics hardware companies worldwide.

Companies such as Compaq, Diamond Multimedia, Gateway2000, Hewlett- Packard, NEC Technologies, Number Nine, Philips, STB and Toshiba are all shipping Mediamatics' MPEG-1 ARCADE(TM) Player in their respective lines of PC systems and board products.

About Mediamatics

Mediamatics, founded in 1993, provides software and semiconductor products enabling full-motion video and high quality audio on PCs, making them cost-effective entertainment solutions.

The company offers highly refined compression technology based on its Collaborative Compression Architecture (CCA). This architecture employs a scalable approach to partitioning system functionality between CPU (via software) and peripheral elements (via VLSI) to achieve the highest quality playback performance while maintaining mass market cost objectives.

Its products are licensed by Microsoft and all major PC OEM manufacturers.

All trade names referenced are the service mark, trademark or registered trademark or trade name of their respective companies.

Highlights of Microsoft's ActiveMovie API: (With a few exceptions, ActiveMovie replaces digital video technology and APIs provided by Microsoft in the past such as Video for Windows)

--Integrated MPEG playback support. With ActiveMovie, Microsoft Internet Explorer allows users to experience television-quality video and CD-quality audio, while minimizing the file size and download time compared to other video and audio formats.

--Progressive playback of audio and video files. ActiveMovie allows users of Microsoft Internet Explorer to begin playback of MPEG video and audio files without having to wait for the entire file to be downloaded. This capability allows users to begin to see video and hear audio content quicker than the traditional "download and play" mechanism commonly used by Internet browsers.

--Support for streaming playback of video and audio content. The ActiveMovie Streaming Format (ASF) provides a new, efficient data format specification for storing and streaming multimedia content, such as audio objects, video objects, still images, URLs and HTML pages.

ASF stores content as a single, synchronized multimedia stream that can be stored on existing HTTP servers or used with the upcoming release of a specialized Microsoft streaming server. Because ASF is a streaming format, playback can begin immediately.

--Transparent hardware acceleration for better playback performance. Mediamatics' MX501 ActiveMovie Accelerator IC, announced recently, provides for very low cost, automatic hardware MPEG playback acceleration thus enabling seamless playback on low-end CPUs and freeing up the valuable CPU utilization and thus making possible stunning special effects and combinations of 2-D and 3-D elements with digital video.