The addition of audio or video to your web presence can make the difference between a browser and a buyer. For a browser to be able to instantly listen to or view a presentation adds value to your product or service, especially if it is difficult to envision through a normally static web site graphic. Hough & Wood Technology Group utilizes state of the art audio and video encoding systems so that your product/service streams quickly and efficiently. 
 Audio Getting audio to play well over a typical internet connection can be a great challenge, especially when allowing for higher quality audio. Audio delivery has been improving during recent years and increased bandwidth has allowed for higher quality. The result is that AM radio quality sound can now be heard at approximately 1K/sec or about 14.4 modem bandwidth. Data compression has improved as computers have gotten better at decoding compression. A faster computer can decode better compression in real time to allow better quality delivery. What can you use Audio for? - You can have an audio file play your latest company report or have it describe other content in an audio format instead of having a "static" text page.
- Play music for your web site.
- Greet users.
- More...
 Video Increasingly more companies are usingthat video as an integral part of their communications strategy. The applications for video are wide-ranging, from network-based training, to videoconferencing, to video brochures. Video adds an exciting interactive dimension to corporate communications. 
Video is not yet widely deployed by web sites, due to the large storage and bandwidth requirements. Video is typically recorded in analog format although the digital format is becoming more popular as costs decrease. For example, A single second of uncompressed video would occupy 30 MB of a computer's disk space. Video must be compressed before it is put online. And it must be converted into digital format. The most common regular (non-streaming) video formats are: MPEG: Motion Picture Experts Group is a format that delivers T.V. quality, 30 fps, full motion video. MPEG defines a set of international standards for the compression and de-compression of audio-visual information (e.g., movies, video, music) in a digital compressed format. The major advantage of MPEG compared to other video and audio coding formats is that MPEG files are much smaller for the same quality. This is because MPEG uses very sophisticated compression techniques. On the Web, MPEG Video files have the extension .mpg RealVideo: RealVideo delivers 'newscast'-quality video over 28.8 kbps modems, full-motion-quality video using V.56 (56 kbps) and ISDN (56/64 kbps) modems, and near TV broadcast quality video at LAN rates or 'broadband' speeds (100 kbps and above). On the client-side, RealVideo delivers easy-to-use interactive features, such as video seeking and scanning, clickable video regions, and 'buffered play' for greater video quality using slower 28.8 kbps modems. On the server back-end, RealVideo delivers the most scalable, cost-effective media server solutions, allowing webcasting companies to deploy from several hundred to several thousand simultaneous video streams. |