Streaming without the player

I ranted last week about incompatible codecs and formats, now there could be a solution to the problem: Video Furnace offers a system that streams TV-quality MPEG-2 without the need for a pre-installed player. To solve the player problem, Video Furnace delivers a small 200K player after the a stream is requested. No more player management headaches. Unfortunately, Video Furnace’s target market is not Internet streaming, rather they’re going after corporate and educational customers looking to multicast video over a high-speed LAN. Northwestern University is using Video Furnace technology to deliver cable TV programming via IP video to over 4,000 students in its campus dormitories. You can read more about Video Furnace and Northwestern here.