Don't look for smiley-faced slogans from one company at this week's Internet World. Geo Interactive would rather be in your face.
Geo is promoting an alternative method for streaming video on the Web. Their message is simple: "Plug-ins suck."
The new video feeds are created with Geo's video-hosting software, Emblaze VideoPro. Users don't need special software to watch a video, only a Java-equipped Web browser. The popular RealNetworks video-stream format, by contrast, requires RealNetworks playback software.
"Ours is a really simple way to go," said Geo president Bruce Edwards. It's as easy as placing a graphic image in a page of text. "We can use a standard HTTP server and simply embed video into a Web page."
Java may have an uncertain future -- and its performance on desktop PCs has often been criticized -- but recent versions of Microsoft's and Netscape's browser software have provided support for it.
"On the client side, plug-ins are definitely an issue," Edwards said.
Geo claims plug-in media players, promoted by RealNetworks and Microsoft, are a major hurdle to the Web becoming an effective video-playback medium. Java is more widespread, the company says, making video an instant option for a much broader audience.
Geo cites Odyssey Research figures, which show that RealNetworks software is installed on 25 percent of Internet users' computers. Java-enabled browsers, by contrast, represent 84.3 percent of the browsers surfing the Net, according to a 1998 Georgia Institute of Technology report.
RealNetworks spokesman Jay Wompold disputes those numbers, claiming his company's software is installed on 65 percent of consumers' computers.
"We're pretty entrenched," said Wompold, although he declined to address Geo's strategy or technology specifically. "I don't want to discount anything they're doing.... We don't view them as competitive."
Edwards believes there is room in the market for all of them.
"Less than one percent of Web sites out there right now offer video, so the market is very, very big," Edwards said. "RealNetworks is smart and very good, but really focused on the high end."
Geo claims less loudly that its Java video software can deliver a higher quality video image -- thanks in part to a lower-quality audio track -- that will only improve as Java is refined. An updated version of Sun's product for building Java software, the Java Development Kit 1.2, is due later this year and is expected to bring performance improvements.
Even if Geo's plug-in argument holds, whether Java is up to the video task remains a question. Other companies have developed Java-based video products in the past, including Vosaic and Webcam, with limited success.
Java has been lambasted for poor performance with end-user software applications. Applications made especially for Windows or the Macintosh OS outperform applications meant to run via the OS-independent Java "virtual machine," critics say.
Geo claims its technology addresses those issues. The company attributes its success to the performance of its proprietary video compression/decompression algorithms, or codecs.
"I think our quality does compare with [RealNetworks]-type quality," Edwards said. "The video is pretty good. The audio is not as good, but that's a problem with Java itself."
RealNetworks charges for each stream delivered by a video content provider. Edwards says his company can serve smaller sites that can't afford to pay the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for RealNetworks server licenses. Geo's Emblaze VideoPro sells for US$300.
Webcaster Thomas Edwards, president of The Sync gives Geo at least a chance.
"If you could get the same quality that the players like RealNetworks and Microsoft have, and without plug-ins, I think a lot of people would look at them," he said. "Because you know, plug-ins do suck."
