Xing Technology
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Xing Technology was a live audio broadcast software company founded in Arroyo Grande, California in 1989 by former networking executive Howard Gordon.
History
Gordon founded Xing on the basis of a simple JPEG decoding library that he had developed. This software attracted the attention of Chris Eddy, who had developed a technique for processing discrete cosine transforms (DCT) efficiently through software. Eddy's technique helped create the first Xing MPEG video player, a very simple MS-DOS application that could play back an I-frame-only video MPEG stream encoded at a constant quantization level at 160x120 resolution. This was previously though impossible for the Intel 386 and Intel 486 level computers of the time.
Over the next several years, Xing expanded in several directions: Windows support for the MS-DOS MPEG player, a software MPEG audio decoder, a real time ISA 160x120 MPEG capture board (XingIt!), a JPEG management system (Picture Prowler) and finally networking. Xing released a handful of products before StreamWorks, the first live 24 hour video and the first live 24 hour audio broadcast system for the internet. RealVideo appeared just before StreamWorks, but at the time it could only broadcast pre-encoded clips. It could not transmit live video. Xing experienced a period of expansion into the mid to late 90's through its MP3 software Catalyst and MP3 Grabber.
Xing was bought by RealNetworks in 1999.
Howard Gordon died of a heart attack on July 20, 2010 at age 57.
References
- Bert J. Dempsey, Paul Jones Internet issues and applications 1997-1998. Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Md. 1998. ISBN 0810834308 (0-8108-3430-8)