01/29/96 GIT ALONG, LITTLE VIDEO

GIT ALONG, LITTLE VIDEO

SENDING REAL-TIME VIDEO and audio over a network to PCs has been an impossible dream. The big problem: Digital video and audio data must be sent in a continuous stream or it looks and sounds choppy. That usually means installing expensive high-speed networks that can handle the flood of data. But Precept Software Inc.--the new company of wife-and-husband entrepreneurs Judy Estrin and Bill Carrico, founders of Bridge Communications & Network Computing Devices--may have an answer.
On Jan. 22, the Cupertino (Calif.) company plans to announce two software products, FlashWare and IP/TV, aimed at delivering multimedia over the Internet and any corporate network. They skirt the need for a high-speed network by compressing the data and delivering it to the PC on time and in the right order. Other companies, such as Xing Technology Corp. and VDOnet Corp., are devising other compression schemes. Final versions of Precept's software should be ready by March.
EDITED BY PAUL M. ENG