March 12, 1997 11:00 AM ET

VDOnet to demo advanced video technology
By Stacy Lavilla

LOS ANGELES -- VDOnet Corp. will demonstrate technology at Internet World in Los Angeles today that enables users to view video at 30 frames per second. VDOnet plans to ship in the second quarter its scalable video technology, which will allow users to view video at near-TV quality over the Internet, according to officials at the Palo Alto, Calif., company. Through improved compression techniques, users will be able to view full-screen video at 30 frames per second over a 512K-bps network connection, said Oren Ariel, chief technology officer at VDOnet. According to Ariel, content providers won't have to recreate video files for various connections such as analog modem, ISDN or asymmetric digital subscriber line to take advantage of the new technology. "You can create a title once, and that title can be viewed over different connections," Ariel said. "Now, with new communications mediums like 56K-bps modems and cable, the same content can be viewed across connections over [512K bps]." Previously, users of the VDOLive player could view compressed, full-screen video at 20 frames per second via a 256K-bps connection. Ariel refused to comment on future products, although he suggested that the new technology would be backward-compatible with current VDOnet products. VDOnet is at www.vdo.net. Copyright(c) 1997 Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company is prohibited. PC Week and the PC Week logo are trademarks of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. PC Week Online and the PC Week Online logo are trademarks of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. Send mail to PC Week