September 24, 2001
Untitled
Speaking of stuffing more content into the old digital pipe and smoking it, there were a couple of interesting product announcements today. Ok, there were actually more than two announcements today, but these ones jumped out at me. First off, Adobe announced AlterCast, which despite its awkward, “we’re trying so hard to be hip”-sounding product name, is imaging server software that can be integrated into existing systems to customize and dynamically generate visual content. It’s turbocharged delivery of imagery via high-performance scripting. It’s Generator for Photoshop files. It’s just, well… cool. And then there’s the new RealOne media platform from RealNetworks. They make it sound as if the development of this updated version of their streaming delivery technology has been driven solely by the needs and wants of the people. Check this quote out: “…its clear that consumers want a unified media experience. They want more simplicity, better performance and easy access to the most exciting media content and experience.” Uh, ok. What they fail to mention is that the reason consumers want unified experience, simplification, and better performance is because most of these things were swept out of their control with the proliferation of junky media players like RealPlayer. In all honesty, I can’t really comment on this one yet, although it sounds great in theory. Frankly, I’ve always had bad experiences using software from Real, and since the preview version of RealOne isn’t even available for the Mac at this point, I’ll have to reserve judgement. Then again, I could just assume that it’s a piece of crap like all of their other products and leave it at that. AlterCast, on the other hand, could be something to watch.
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