Vianet Technologies, which specializes in visual media communications, has announced that a Lightening Strike Software Development Kit (SDK) partner has released the ZyGoVideo CODEC for QuickTime and QuickTime Pro.
The codec compresses and decompresses video files to deliver rich, broadcast-quality video at lower transmission speeds, according to Pete Ianace, CEO of Vianet. The Vianet SDK allowed Media Metastasis to quickly build and release a QuickTime video compressor optimized for Web streaming data rates, he added.
“The CODEC meets or exceeds the industry standards for both video quality and low bit-rate delivery and has already been accepted by Apple Computer to be included in the QuickTime Component Program,” Ianace said in a statement. “We are excited about the short-term progress of this technology and business partnership that will generate a shared revenue stream after the product launch. The next group of products from this partnership will include imaging applications for the Palm handheld operating system.”
The basic decompression component is automatically downloaded from the QuickTime Component Download site when playing clips compressed with ZyGoVideo and the next release of the QuickTime Player will include an integrated ZyGoVideo decoder. The ZygoVideo Pro compression CODEC for preparing videos for streaming or video-on-demand applications is available at the Vianet Web site.
ZyGoVideo purportedly provides a full set of professional compression settings to control data rate, quality and encode/decode speed for a nearly limitless number of video sources. It enables low-level assembly routines so that compression and decompression go “blindingly fast,” according to Media Metastasis.
The company said that ZyGoVideo Pro offers better color space for key frames; precise key frame placement; key frame sensitivity selection; motion sensitivity selection; smoothing video setting; preset values for Media Cleaner Pro; and a tutorial guide for better compression.
ZyGoVideo is based on wavelets compression. This compression technology has been under development for over eight years to support JPEG 2000 stills and video teleconferencing applications. The ZyGoVideo version of this technology will use the “aggressive compression” capabilities of JPEG 2000 and the video teleconferencing characteristics to enable “excellent streaming video.”
A basic version is available for free and a Pro version for an introductory price of US$49 from the product Web site. The site also has videos that let you compare ZyGoVideo for QuickTime with Windows Media and Real Player. ZyGoVideo will also provide video decompression on Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). A Palm OS compatible codec will be available soon.