Microsoft Corp and Mediamatics Inc, Santa Clara, California have announced an ActiveMovie MPEG 1 interface that enables software only Digital Versatile Disk playback on computers running any version of Windows. The announcement comes some eighteen months after Microsoft announced it had licensed Mediamatics’ software playback technology (CI No 2,680). Mediamatics, which provides software and semiconductor products for full-motion video and audio on personal computers, says with leading computer vendors taking the product for a fraction of the cost of hardware playback systems, the ActiveMovie interface will become the defacto standard for software only playback. The next step is to make ActiveMovie recognize MPEG 2, said Mediamatics president and chief executive Prem Nath. The company says Windows 95 and NT users will be able to get the full benefits of the advances of DVD, including high performance full-motion video and CD-quality audio. The companies also say that ActiveMovie makes it easier for developers to write their applications once, and then have them run across other DVD systems.
