Vivo Software was a pioneer internet
streaming media company which was acquired by
RealNetworks 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 MP3 ...
,
QuickTime 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 techn ...
have evolved as the dominant platforms. The development of Vivo ceased in 1997 to be replaced by RealPlayer from
RealNetworks.
VivoActive
VivoActive is an audio/video format created by Vivo Software, acquired by
RealNetworks in 1997. The Vivo format is based upon
H.263 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 frames, 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 using ...
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 using ...
- http://www.mplayerhq.hu
*
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 MP3 ...
- http://www.real.com
[Vivo RealPlayer Plug-In](_blank)
/ref>
*VivoActive Browser Plug-in - http://egg.real.com/vivo-player/vivodl.html
See also
* RealMedia
* RealNetworks
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
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