DVD authoring - Company Business and Marketing

Emedia Professional, May, 2000

Matrox RT2000 Realtime Editing Platform Now Shipping

Matrox Video Products Group has announced that the production version of the RT2000 card is available from authorized dealers and distributors worldwide. The card provides 3D DVE, 32-bit uncompressed, and animated graphics in a dual-stream, native-DV editing environment. MPEG-2 output for DVD and Web video streaming applications as well as FireWire (IEEE 1394) and analog video output are also supported. The RT2000 bundle includes the Matrox Millennium G400 Flex 3D Edition graphics accelerator, the RT2000 codec card, an A/V breakout box, and a software suite including Adobe Premiere RT, Ulead Cool 3D, Sonic Foundry ACID Music, and Sonic DVDit! LE. The RT2000 is available at an estimated street price of $1,295.

(Matrox Video Products Group, 1055 Saint-Regis Boulevard, Dorval, QU, H9P 2T4, Canada, 800/361-1408, 514/969-6300; Fax 514/969-6294; http://www.matrox.com)

Sonic's DVDit! LE Now Bundled with REALmagic DVR

Sigma Designs, Inc. and Sonic Solutions have announced that Sigma has begun shipping Sonic's DVDit! LE with its REALmagic DVR. DVDit! LE is a software authoring application that allows users to drag and drop compressed video clips, audio clips, backgrounds, and buttons to build an interactive DVD title. "We selected DVDit! LE to bundle with REALmagic DVR because of its ease-of-use, extensive feature set, and its power to turn DVR's high-quality MPEG-2 video into DVDs that can play back on any set-top DVD player or DVD-equipped PC." REALmagic DVR is an encoder and decoder card for creating and playing DVD titles.

(Sigma Designs, 46501 Landing Parkway, Fremont, CA 94538; 800/845-8510; Fax 510/770-2640; http://www.sigmadesigns.com. Sonic Solutions, Inc., 101 Rowland Way, Suite 110, Novato, CA 94945; 415/893-8000; Fax 415/893-8008; http://www.sonic.com)

MTC Announces DVDMotion CE Authoring Software

Multimedia Technology Center, Inc. (MTC) has announced DVDMotion CE, a DVD authoring tool designed for casual users and beginners. The "Wizard Title Generator" allows users to create DVD titles without most of the normal authoring complexity. Titles created using DVDMotion CE can be recorded to CD-R or CD-RW, or to DVD-R using MTC's ForDVD premastering tool, which creates a DVD disc image from the file. DVDMotion CE is available at an estimated street price of $75.

(Multimedia Technology Center, Inc., 194 Ferncliff Road, P.O. Box 39, Mohawk, NY 13407; 315/866-4639; Fax 315/866-4709; http://www.mtc2000.com)

Ulead Systems Releases MediaStudio Pro 6.0

Ulead Systems, Inc. has released MediaStudio Pro 6.0, the latest version of its professional video editor. The new version incorporates support for DV IEEE-1394 (iLink/FireWire), MPEG-2, and MP3 audio.

MediaStudio Pro can edit natively in DV or MPEG-2, which helps to eliminate loss. MP3 audio files can be captured and used for background music or sound effects. Features include independent source and preview windows, improved ripple editing, an automatic cross-fade tool, an audio decibel display with fade nodes on the timeline, lock/unlock tracks, on/off tracks scissors, selection tools, and access to most clip functions through right-click options. Additionally, Ulead has made improvements to its SmartRender technology. MediaStudio Pro 6.0 will be available at an estimated street price of $495.

(Ulead Systems, Inc., 970 West 190th Street, Suite 520, Torrance, CA 90502; 310/523-9393; Fax 310/523-9399; http://www.ulead.com)

Interra Ships Surveyor 2.0, Announces Agreement with DCA

Interra Digital Video Technologies, Inc. has announced that it is shipping an upgrade to its Surveyor product for the DVD-Video premastering industry. Release 2.0 adds to Surveyor the ability to view and interrogate errors as they are detected, a redesigned user interface, and a drill-down debug mode. Also included are a project setup wizard, built-in Internet Explorer for viewing reports, a data browser for in-depth examination of individual DVD objects, and context-sensitive help. Surveyor is a Windows 9x software application that performs checks on DVD titles for compliance with all aspects of the DVD-Video format. Interra's Surveyor 2.0 is available at an estimated street price of $5,995.

Interra has also announced that DCA, Inc. is working to integrate Interra's Surveyor software into DCA's disc-verification product family. DCA's products include the SVS (Signal Verification System) and INMS (Integrated Network Mastering System). Current users of DCA's DVS and SVS products will be able to obtain the Surveyor features through an upgrade option.

(Interra Digital Video Technologies, Inc., 2001 Gateway Place, Suite 440W, San Jose, CA 95110; 408/573-1400; Fax 408/573-1430; http://www.interra-video.com. DCA, Inc., 1515 East Pine, Cushing, OK 74023)

Sonic Solutions Introduces Streaming DVD

Sonic Solutions has introduced Streaming DVD, a new technology that allows video content to be broadcast over the Web. Designed as an Internet extension to the DVD-Video standard, Streaming DVD will be available as an optional format in all Sonic DVD authoring applications. Streaming DVD features MPEG-2 video in a low bit-rate format designed for Internet applications, as well as the navigation, interactive menus, and multilanguage capabilities of standard DVD-Video.