Advanced Streaming Format

Advanced Streaming Format

About ASF

Today, in 1997, the old media rules. Multimedia content, such as CNN's World Report, NPR's All Things Considered, Coppola's The Godfather, Ansel Adams' photos of Yosemite, is experienced by the masses only through the old media of television, radio, movies, and print. The old media are analog. Each consists of its own separate world, with its own particular means for creating, delivering, and playing the multimedia content.

The new medium is digital. In the digital world, all forms of multimedia content -- video, audio, images, text, and animation -- are created, delivered, and played. Together. Separate. It doesn't matter. It's all bits and bytes.

Today, digital multimedia content is gradually trickling onto the computer desktop. The digital seers -- Negroponte (Being Digital), Gilder (Life After Television), Gates (The Road Ahead) -- all say the same thing. They say that this trickle is about to turn into a flood, and that that flood will engulf not only your computer desktop, but also your television, your telephone, your toaster, your fridge, and probably even your tennis shoes.

Over the past few years, a number of different technologies have emerged pressing against the closed digital floodgates. In the near future, more technologies will emerge to finally bust those gates wide open. Today, there is a new technology heralding the opening of the gates. That technology is called ASF.

What is ASF? How will ASF contribute to opening the digital floodgates? This page seeks to answer these questions and more, leaving you with a solid understanding of ASF and its importance.

Related Information
ASF WhitePaper