Vivo Software was a pioneer internet

streaming media Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...

company which was acquired by

RealNetworks RealNetworks, Inc. is a provider of artificial intelligence and computer vision based products. RealNetworks was a pioneer in Internet streaming software and services. They are based in Seattle, Washington, United States. The company also p ...

in March 1998. Vivo Software designed the ''Vivo Video/Audio platform'', including its encoding tools and end-user ''VivoActive Player''. The Vivo format, obsolete today, was one of the first to be designed and used for internet streaming. The Vivo platform was a well-known player when streaming media was in its infancy and was deployed mainly on erotic sites during the mid-1990s. Since then

RealPlayer RealPlayer, formerly RealAudio Player, RealOne Player and RealPlayer G2, is a cross-platform media player app, developed by RealNetworks. The media player is compatible with numerous container file formats of the multimedia realm, including MP ...

QuickTime QuickTime is an extensible multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. Created in 1991, the latest Mac version, QuickTime X, is avai ...

and

Windows Media Windows Media is a discontinued multimedia framework for media creation and distribution for Microsoft Windows. It consists of a software development kit (SDK) with several application programming interfaces (API) and a number of prebuilt technolo ...

have evolved as the dominant platforms. The development of Vivo ceased in 1997 to be replaced by RealPlayer from

VivoActive

VivoActive is an audio/video format created by Vivo Software, acquired by

in 1997. The Vivo format is based upon

H.263 H.263 is a video compression standard originally designed as a low-bit-rate compressed format for videotelephony. It was standardized by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) in a project ending in 1995/1996. It is a member of the H.26x fam ...

video and

G.723 G.723 is an ITU-T standard speech codec using extensions of G.721 providing voice quality covering 300 Hz to 3400 Hz using Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation (ADPCM) to 24 and 40 kbit/s for digital circuit multiplication equip ...

ADPCM Adaptive differential pulse-code modulation (ADPCM) is a variant of differential pulse-code modulation (DPCM) that varies the size of the quantization step, to allow further reduction of the required data bandwidth for a given signal-to-noise ratio ...

audio (not the G.723.1 speech codec). It uses inter-frame coding, but does not insert any

key frame In animation and filmmaking, a key frame (or keyframe) is a drawing or shot that defines the starting and ending points of a smooth transition. These are called ''frames'' because their position in time is measured in frames on a strip of film ...

s, except at the beginning of the clip, which effectively disables the possibility of seeking to specific locations in the stream. One of the last released versions of VivoActive Player added a

workaround A workaround is a bypass of a recognized problem or limitation in a system or policy. A workaround is typically a temporary fix that implies that a genuine solution to the problem is needed. But workarounds are frequently as creative as true solut ...

for this handicap by quickly decoding all frames from the first one to the requested position.

MPlayer MPlayer is a free and open-source media player software application. It is available for Linux, OS X and Microsoft Windows. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS, MorphOS and AROS Research Operating System are also available. A port for DOS usi ...

is able to play and convert Vivo video clips.

Playback

The official client (The VivoActive Player) was limited. Current available clients are: *

Mplayer MPlayer is a free and open-source media player software application. It is available for Linux, OS X and Microsoft Windows. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS, MorphOS and AROS Research Operating System are also available. A port for DOS usi ...

- http://www.mplayerhq.hu *

- http://www.real.comVivo RealPlayer Plug-In
/ref> *VivoActive Browser Plug-in - http://egg.real.com/vivo-player/vivodl.html

References

External links

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority for vivo

RealNetworks Acquisition History

Multimedia Vivo
Defunct software companies of the United States Software companies disestablished in 1998 Video codecs Audio codecs RealNetworks 1998 mergers and acquisitions {{multimedia-software-stub

VivoActive

Playback

See also

References

External links