Streaming video specialist, Xing Technology, has announced a software only real-time MPEG compression technology, which it says will reduce the cost of multimedia applications requiring high-quality video. MPEG, the standard for high-bandwidth internet and intranet video applications, has typically needed custom hardware for real-time compression. Xing has modified the engine of its XingMPEG Encoder 2.1 product to take advantage of Intel Corp’s Pentium II to achieve real-time compression of full- screen, full-motion video. Xing hopes its software will take advantage of the increase in broadband internet bandwidth to deliver movies, games, narrowcast television and other high- quality interactive video applications to the corporate and home markets. The real-time, software-only encoding and delivery of full-screen, full-motion video was demonstrated by Intel Corp at Fall Comdex in Las Vegas using Xing’s compression and delivery technologies with a dual-processor Pentium II processor-based web server to simultaneously MPEG-encode and deliver a live feed over a network. Xing will use the MPEG compression technology in future versions of its StreamWorks, MPEGLive! Encoder and XingMPEG Encoder2, due for release in the second half of 1998.
