CMP Media Inc has launched a full television channel on the internet using new software from Vivo Software Inc of Waltham, Massachusetts at a time when most people are still chugging along on 28.8Kbps modems. Called the First-TV network, it will offer recorded programs about the internet and original material from desktop videographers and digital animators, and you can take a look at it at http://www.first-tv.com. It uses Vivo’s VivoActive 1.0, described as the first serverless low-bandwidth system for producing and playing video on demand using standard internet protocols over dial-up modems. VivoActive 1.0 comprises VivoActive Producer and VivoActive Player: the Producer enables Webmasters to produce and integrate streams-based video into their Web sites and VivoActive Player is a browser plug-in that enables users to view the video from any VivoActivated Web site. Vivo says that by using the HTTP protocol, the VivoActive software family makes video a natural component of the Web environment rather than treating video as an adjunct or add-on requiring additional hardware or modifications to internet-intranet infrastructures. VivoActive Producer also eliminates the need for dedicated video server hardware and conserves network bandwidth, enabling faster, more widely accessible on-demand video over the Web – provided your machine is fast enough – a 66MHz 80486 is the minimum, and it works adequately but jerkily on such a machine although some text is hard to read. The compression ratio is a crushing 200:1. The software works with Web video formats such as QuickTime/AVI files. VivoActive Player can be downloaded free to machines running Navigator 2.0 and up and Explorer 3.0 on all Windows and Power Mac machines, from http://www.vivo.com. The VivoActive Producer – you too can launch your own television station on the Web – costs $500 per copy. Windows95 and NT versions are out now, and the version for the Apple Computer Inc Power Mac will be ready next month.
