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Start-up takes on streaming video

Digital Lava launches software applications it says manage and manipulate video data the way word processing applications do with text.

In the age of streaming video, a Southern California company is betting that corporations want their desktops to act more like multimedia systems and less like television sets, spitting out video data that cannot be altered.

Start-up Digital Lava has launched a suite of software applications that it says manages and manipulates video data the way word processing applications do with text.

The suite includes vPrism, a "video publishing" tool that allows users to import and link digitized video to contextual data such as scripts, URLs, and other files. VideoVisor is the client-side desktop application that allows viewing and manipulation of the video data.

The company has inked a development, sales, and marketing relationship with RealNetworks and arranged less formal partnerships with companies such as Starlight Networks, Silicon Graphics, and Microsoft.

"The fact is, their customers are demanding an application like ours," said Patti Bodner, vice president of worldwide marketing for Digital Lava. "They know how to get the video, they just don't know what to do with it."

According to Digital Lava chief executive Josh Sharfman, vPrism and VideoVisor are fully compliant with all industry file formats including MPEG, Apple's QuickTime, audio-video interleaved (AVI), and WAV files.

VideoVisor and vPrism are both targeted at corporate computer-based training, human resources applications, multimedia archiving, and presentation applications. Digital Lava cites research that estimates that corporate training alone is a $60 billion market.