Media 100 Announces Complete DVD Production Solution; Offers Sonic Solutions DVD Fusion with MediaPress Suite

Business Wire,  May 30, 2000  

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Business/Technology Editors

MARLBORO, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 30, 2000

Media 100 Inc. (NASDAQ: MDEA), the pioneer of streaming media production tools, announced today that it is offering Sonic Solutions (NASDAQ:SNIC) DVD Fusion(TM) SL authoring software, a new version of the world's leading professional DVD production system, with Media 100 MediaPress Suite(TM) MPEG authoring solution. The newly-announced Media 100 MediaPress Suite is the only solution on the market that accelerates the DVD production workflow by giving content creators the highest-quality MPEG files to be used in DVD creation or Internet streaming. Combining DVD Fusion SL and the MediaPress Suite offers a complete, powerful and low-priced DVD production solution for Macintosh users, particularly the tens of thousands of current Media 100 customers.

"DVD is the most rapidly adopted consumer electronics technology in history and we are fast approaching the day when the majority of personal computers will ship with DVD-ROM drives instead of CD-ROM drives," said Mike Savello, director of marketing for Media 100. "This reality has interactive content developers clamoring for powerful, complete, easy-to-use tools for MPEG authoring and DVD production. The combination of MediaPress Suite and DVD Fusion represents the industry's lowest-cost, highest-quality, integrated solution for creating interactive DVD titles."

Introduced at last month's NAB show in Las Vegas, the Media 100 MediaPress Suite enables real-time MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 encoding, real-time preview during encode, and real-time MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and DVD playback. With DVD Fusion SL, now standard, MediaPress Suite users can build menus, author interactive links, preview a DVD title, and record the finished project to a DVD-R or DLT tape. The Media 100 MediaPress Suite also includes the ability to transcode QuickTime(R) files to MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 and supports multiplexed audio and video. This allows non-linear editors using Media 100 and other video editing systems to convert their edited projects to the appropriate DVD formats and then author them with DVD Fusion.

"We're very pleased that Media 100 has added DVD Fusion SL to their MediaPress Suite systems," said Mary Sauer, senior vice president of Business Development for Sonic Solutions. "The combination of MediaPress Suite with our award-winning authoring software provides a very attractive solution for creating interactive videos, training, and multimedia presentations for a wide span of corporate, industrial, and Internet applications."

Pricing and Availability

MediaPress Suite with DVD Fusion is available today in two configurations -- MediaPress Suite which includes Composite, S-video and Component video inputs; and MediaPress Suite SDI which adds support for Serial Digital Interface (SDI) as well as AES/EBU and S/PDIF digital audio. MediaPress Suite is available from leading Media100 resellers at an introductory price of $6,699; MediaPress Suite SDI retails for $8,199.

About DVD Fusion SL

Based on Sonic's award-winning DVD Creator technology, DVD Fusion SL provides video producers and editors a comprehensive set of tools for authoring and proofing DVD-Video titles from projects created on Avid, Media 100 and QuickTime-based video editing systems. DVD Fusion SL authoring supports fast, easy, drag-and-drop assembly of video clips, audio clips and menu graphics into interactive DVD titles. DVD Fusion SL allows projects to be previewed on a CPU monitor or an external video monitor, enabling fast feedback and quality control. DVD Fusion SL also contains integrated DVD title verification to ensure that each DVD title is compatible across the broadest range of set-top and PC-based DVD playback devices. DVD Fusion SL is fully upgradeable to the DVD Fusion Advanced Authoring option and to Sonic's DVD Creator.

About Sonic Solutions (NASDAQ: SNIC)

Based in Marin County, California, Sonic (http://www.sonic.com) is the leading manufacturer of solutions for DVD publishing and streaming DVD video on the Internet. Sonic DVD Creator and DVD Fusion are the most widely used systems for professional DVD publishing, and are installed worldwide at major studios, post production facilities and in corporate marketing departments. Sonic DVDit! (http://www.dvdit.com) is the first application for DVD authoring targeted at consumers and corporate video producers, and is bundled with major video editing, capture, encoding and media production systems. Sonic's DVD systems have won a number of top awards including "Best DVD Authoring System" by the readers of Post Magazine, "Users Choice Award" from Film & Video Magazine, and "Platinum Award for Innovation in Technology" from AV Video Magazine. SonicStudio HD is the leading digital workstation for preparing audio for release on CD and the first for creating content for the new DVD-Audio format. Sonic is also a full voting member of the DVD Forum, the standards-setting body for the DVD format.