WEB multimedia over standard dial-up connections

C) New file formats, still no streaming introduced.

The need for the new file formats was great. Developers were forced to do the following:

intentionally downgrade the quality by using stronger and lossier compression techniques
downgrade the framerate from over 25 frames per second to usually not more that 5 to 10
downgrade the size of the clips to sizes such as 150x120 pixels

The result of that was breaking the real-time barrier. Now, the audience equipped with 28.8 kbps, or in some cases even 14.4 kbps modems didn't have to wait any more, since the bitrates of the file formats were lower than those needed for the real time download and play over standard dial-up connections.

The price was paid. Full screen, full frame, true color formats which consumed enormous time for their downloads were replaced on the Internet with low-quality, low-framerate, postal-stamp size clips, with only two advantages - real time download and play and less valuable ISP's Web disk space required.

The main idea is achieved:

Appropriate viewing rather than intolerable viewing.

Again, clever client software was involved in synchronizing the incoming media packets, solving problems when bandwidth became insufficient etc.

One of the most popular multimedia file format comes from that level of the streaming development, and although pseudo-streaming, competes very well with other streaming products - the Vivo.