So many technologies - so little time. VCS benchmarks
five technologies providing an instant reference to the state
of the art in:
- Software codecs
- Capture boards
- Analog formats
- MPEG-1 encoding systems
- Streaming video for Internet delivery
- Streaming audio for Internet delivery
Hundreds of hours of benchmark testing compressed onto one CD-ROM,
which also includes a new, 32-bit version of VCS Play.
Software Codecs: Benchmark clips illustrate the strengths
and weaknesses of the tested codecs.
- Benchmark clips - Supplied by GTE VisNet from
actual corporate communications and training footage. Categories
include talking head, sales training, manipulation sequence,
high motion, and full and quarter screen animations.
- Codecs - Indeo video interactive/Indeo 3.2
(Intel), Cinepak (Radius), Power !Video (Horizons
Technology), Smacker (RAD Game Tools) and Video
1 (Microsoft).
- Compression Parameters 320x240 and 640x480,
at 15, 20, 24 and 30 fps, compressed to 150, 200, 250, 400, 600
KB/S.
- Featured extras:
- IVI unplugged - Confused by Indeo video interactive's
options? Us too, so we tried and included them all on the CD-ROM.
- Tour de Codec - From Publishing Digital Video,
our guide to software codecs.
Capture Boards: See which delivers the best quality
and optimum bang for the buck
- Tested boards -FAST's AV/Master, Digital
Video Art's Wakeboard, Intel's Smart Video Recorder
III, miro's DC30 and Truevision's Bravado 1000.
- Test files - captured and compressed in MPEG-1,
Cinepak and VDO formats.
Analog Formats: Do higher quality formats deliver better
compressed quality?
- Compare clips captured from BetaSP, Hi-8, S-VHS, VHS and laserdisc
- Preview of Sony's DV format
MPEG-1 Encoders: Range in price from $89 to $500K. How
does quality compare?
- Encoders - Xing's software MPEG-1 Encoder, Data Translations
Broadway (two pass), FutureTel's Primeview II (real
time) and IBM's service bureau.
Streaming Video: You've heard the hype - now see the
difference.
- Benchmark clips - talking head and high motion,
in 160x120 and 320x240 at 28.8, 64 and 128 kbps.
- Codecs - ClearVideo (Iterated Systems), VDOLive
(VDONet), VivoActive (Vivo Software) and VXtreme
(Vxtreme, Inc.)
Streaming Audio: What's all the noise about?
- Benchmark clips - Male/female speech, rock,
electric and symphonic music compressed to 14.4/28.8 kbps.
- Codecs - RealAudio 3.0, TrueSpeech, Voxware
VCS Play: Side-by-side video display utility with full
performance and file stats, including:
- New 32-bit version - higher performance, long
file name support;
- Playback Statistics - Display rate, resolution,
video mode and color depth;
- Video Statistics - Key frame, frame rate
and video and audio data rate;
- Frame Profile - Frame graph with per second
data rate to identify data "spikes" and bandwidth overages
Price: $130
Sales Line: 404-892-2889
