U2 can have instant gratification

Burstware is about to revolutionise the downloading of audio and video clips

Viewing video on the Internet is rarely worth the effort. Even with a 28.8 modem, clips take too long to download, the quality is poor and you need to have the right viewing software installed. Even audio files take an age to download before you can hear anything. It is especially annoying to have to spend minutes transferring a file to find out you didn't want it.

Now, a new technology from a small San Francisco company part-owned by the rock group U2 is about to turn that wait into instant gratification. Instant Video Technologies' Burstware Viewer downloads video and audio clips faster than you can view them, and allows you to play them back the moment the file transfer begins. It is activated by a tiny Java applet, which itself downloads in seconds, under Netscape's Navigator or similar browsers.

The first version was delivered in July and the software should be available to users by the end of the year. It is platform, network, OS and compression independent, and completely scaleable, so users can select the video and audio quality they need to get higher or lower speeds.

For Burstware's first public showing, IVT set up a transmission from the BT Tower in London to Las Vegas, where it was between five and 19 times faster than real-time, depending on network traffic, with playback starting the moment transfer began. The same four and a half minute video clip sent by normal ftp transfer took six and a half minutes - and only then could playback start.

The video was specially recorded by U2, the company's largest investor (with 37 per cent). Although it invests in many companies, Burstware is the first commercial product the band has actively promoted. According to Gary Familian, IVT's president, the band is promoting the product because it recognises "how much the technology could do for the music industry".

U2 intends to use Burstware during its world tour, which will start next summer, with Bono using a voice activation system to call up video clips from servers around the world for display on giant video walls.

IVT started work on faster than real-time transmission in 1988, but it was June 1995 before its first technology trial. That included one London broadcast facilities house, The Mill. Now, SohoNet, a group of wired Soho facilities, is looking at adopting the technology to send video around London and across the Atlantic, where its speed and quality would allow film-makers in Hollywood to use British special effects talent.

Other applications include video-on-demand and interactive shopping. Mr Familian says it lends itself to interactivity because of how it manages network traffic.

"It pulls down only what you need, when you need it, in segmented bursts, which is an efficient way of using the network and uses less RAM in your PC," he says.

One of the big problems with networks is that they are easily hijacked by powerful servers or clients. "What typically will happen is that both will try and push and pull the largest amount of data possible," he says. However, Burstware "won't knock out the whole Internet as video and audio does at present", so the system can operate at normal speeds without causing gridlock.

"It's a bit like having a traffic cop managing the ebb and flow in the pipe," Mr Familian explains.

However, the Internet still has so many potential bottlenecks that even Burstware can't always cope. It won't send faster than real-time on a 9600bps connection, for example, although that is still a lot better than any alternatives. This is why IVT is initially aiming Burstware at broadband networks, as used by television, which have the capacity to send high- resolution, full-motion video.

IVT's latest product, Burstware Sockets, an audio player plug-in offering almost CD quality audio instantly over the Internet using a 28.8 modem, has just started alpha testing. Demonstrations of the technology will be available on its Web site (http://www.burst.com/ivt). As it uses a tiny Java applet, users won't need to have it pre-installed to listen to audio on suitable Web sites once it goes into use by the end of the year. A similar video plug-in is also being developed, "but the backbone of the Internet needs to have fewer bottlenecks first", says Mr Familian, who expects it to be released in a year to 18 months.