Microsoft creates new multimedia formats

Microsoft and a dozen other companies announced on Friday two new formatsto handle streaming media. With the announcement comes the death of thefamiliar AVI format, which is used on Windows 95 and NT machines to displayvideos in a small window. Two new formats are called Advanced StreamingFormat (ASF) and Advanced Authoring Format (AAF). ASF, which Microsoft developed with Adobe, Real Networks, and Vivio, handles streaming audio andvideo, typically for use over a network or the Internet. AAF, which wasdeveloped with Adobe, Matrox, and several other companies, is designed forcontent creators. It's goal is to eliminate the need to convert betweenvarious types of multimedia formats.

Microsoft is planning on integrating support for both formats into Windowsand Windows NT by 1999. Specifications for the formats is available from the AAF and ASF homepages