Macromedia, Inc. and Telos Systems announced that Shockwave', the standard for multimedia on the Internet, is now supported by Telos' Audioactive', the highest quality live audio on the Web. With Shockwave, Web visitors can now use a single, free plug-in to experience all media-multimedia, both live and pre-recorded CD-quality streaming audio, streamed hi-res images and 2D vector graphics.

Shockwave, with more than 12 million players downloaded, is the lowest cost and highest quality shipping solution for the creation of multimedia and pre-recorded streaming audio on the Web. By employing the live audio technology developed by Telos, Shockwave will continue to change the way consumers interact online. For example, cybersurfers could tune into a live concert while flipping through multimedia program notes, hear their favorite local radio station anywhere in the world or listen to live business presentations while reviewing corporate materials.

"Shockwave is the standard for interactive multimedia and streaming audio and will be installed on 20 million desktops by the end of the year," said Phil Schiller, Macromedia's vice president of product management. "Macromedia's alliance with Telos Systems makes Shockwave the single integrated solution for multimedia and live audio on the Web." "Thanks to this alliance, Shockwave users can now automatically receive live Audioactive Webcasts, as well as listen to pre-encoded, streaming Shockwave Audio," said Steve Church, president of Telos Systems. "Combining Audioactive's superior live audio performance with Macromedia's full range of multimedia authoring tools, the hundreds of thousands of Macromedia developers can now create sophisticated Websites that will grab the attention of millions of Web visitors like never before."

Macromedia and Telos: Live Audio For The Internet Using Macromedia's Shockwave with Telos' Audioactive technology, developers can deliver the highest quality multimedia and live audio at the lowest cost of creation to tens of millions of Web listeners. The Macromedia and Telos solution for live Internet audio employs the following technology components:

Telos' Audioactive Netcoder encodes audio in real time, harnessing a dedicated, DSP-based hardware platform offering greater processing power than systems that are bound to general purpose CPUs. Telos' Internet Audio server software duplicates the input bit-stream to serve multiple simultaneous listeners. Telos' Audioactive replication software supports multiple servers to scale up the number of listeners and improve propagation. Macromedia's Shockwave or Telos' Audioactive client software allows consumers to listen to the live audio content. … Macromedia's Director creates interactive multimedia content for a robust multimedia experience.

Both Macromedia and Telos tapped the world-standard MPEG-2 Layer III audio coding technology developed by Fraunhofer Gesellschaft to ensure superior sound quality. MPEG-2 Layer III is the most advanced audio coding for transmission at very low bit rates.

Because Telos relies on standard protocols such as TCP/IP and HTTP, audio content can be transported through firewalls. As a result, Web visitors >from corporations or universities that employ firewalls can enjoy the same access to live audio as other users.

"The alliance between Macromedia and Telos will provide one solution for multimedia, pre-recorded and live audio content to the millions of Websurfers who are already using Shockwave," said Joan-Carol Brigham, senior analyst at International Data Corporation.

Developing with Shockwave Announced just 10 months ago, the Shockwave platform has become the most popular way to view dynamic multimedia on the Web. Thousands of the world's leading Web sites have been "Shocked" with interactive animation, graphics and audio, including Capitol Records, MusicNet, Warner Brothers, Internet Underground Music Archive (IUMA) and Disney's Aladdin site. More than ten million Shockwave viewers have been downloaded with 20 million Shockwave-enabled browsers anticipated by the end of the year.

Shockwave is free to all Web surfers. Macromedia developers can download the free Shockwave Xtras' for Director’ 5.01, SoundEdit 16' version 2, Authorware’ 3.5, FreeHand' 7 (beta) and xRes' 3 (beta) from Macromedia's Web site. The Xtras enable Macromedia developers to compress files created with Macromedia products, and optimize them for the Web. Web users who already have Shockwave do not need to download a new version to enjoy streamed live audio.

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