Sonic DVD Fusion Ships For Avid, Media 100 And QuickTime Video Platforms
Sonic Delivers Seamless DVD Publishing For Video Editors Sonic Solutions (NASDAQ: SNIC) has announced that it has begun shipping its new line of DVD Fusion systems for creating DVD projects directly from Macintosh-based AvidÆ, Media 100Æ and QuickTimeÆ video editing systems. Based on Sonic's award-winning DVD Creator system, DVD Fusion allows video editors to transcode their video editing projects into DVD-compatible video and audio streams and then author interactive DVD titles using this content. The initial users of DVD Fusion range from small video post houses to large institutions with in-house video production. ""There are tens of thousands of video editing systems installed around the world,"" said Mark Ely, Director of Product Marketing at Sonic Solutions, ""and DVD Fusion is the most productive and most cost-effective way for these users to start creating high-quality DVD titles."" ""DVD Fusion gives us a direct bridge from our Media 100 editing system to DVD,"" said Nick Gale, Managing Director of Realisation, a U.K. production and video post facility. ""It allows us to offer a new line of services to provide to our clients, and we anticipate that they will jump at the opportunity to create promotional, training and presentation videos for DVD. With the high-quality video and interactivity we can create with DVD Fusion, we're certain that we can help our clients make their corporate communications more effective."" General Motors' Design Center in Warren, Michigan, is adding a DVD Fusion to create DVD content from projects edited on their Avid Media Composer systems. ""We create many hours of video-based content each month, and for many of our projects, DVD is a far superior vehicle for conveying our message,"" said Wayne Morrical, Video Department Manager at GM's Design Center. ""Our initial plans for DVD Fusion include the creation of DVD-based video animations of new vehicles, product demos for market research, employee training videos and in-house presentations."" About DVD Fusion Based on Sonic's award-winning DVD Creator technology, DVD Fusion gives video producers and editors a comprehensive set of tools for encoding, authoring and proofing DVD-Video titles from projects created on Avid, Media 100 and QuickTime-based video editing systems. Sonic DVD Fusion enables digital transcoding of QuickTime video files into high-quality MPEG-2 video without the need to lay video content off to tape. This ensures the highest quality video and avoids the signal degradation that can occur with digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital conversion. DVD Fusion also includes Dolby Digital 5.1 surround audio encoding as well as support for uncompressed PCM audio. DVD Fusion authoring supports fast, easy, drag-and-drop assembly of video clips, audio clips and menu graphics into interactive DVD titles. Up to eight audio streams and 32 subtitle streams can be assigned to each video clip. Real-time proofing allows projects to be previewed on a CPU monitor or an external video monitor, enabling fast feedback and QC. DVD Fusion 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. Finished projects can be recorded directly to DVD-R in a single step without the need to create intermediate files. Sonic DVD Fusion is available in two configurations for the Macintosh. A software-based version includes MPEG-2 video transcoding and Dolby Digital audio encoding, is compatible with QuickTime video or audio files, and sells at a suggested U.S. list price of $7,999. A hardware-accelerated version speeds MPEG transcoding by as much as 500 percent and also enables real-time VBR and CBR encoding of video content from component and composite video inputs; it has a suggested U.S. list price of $11,999. About Sonic Solutions Based in Marin County, California, Sonic Solutions designs and manufactures DVD publishing systems used by video, audio and multimedia professionals around the world to prepare music, video, film, graphics and entertainment software. Sonic DVD Creator is the leading system for producing content for the DVD format, and has been used to create thousands of DVD titles worldwide, for applications ranging from feature film releases to corporate and industrial titles. Sonic also offers SonicStudio HD, the leading digital audio workstation used by audio professionals to prepare recorded sound for release on DVD and CD, as well as for film and video soundtracks and broadcast. Sonic is a leader in advancing DVD-Video and DVD-Audio technology and is a full voting-member of the DVD Forum, the standards-setting body for the DVD format. Sonic Solutions can be contacted on the Web at: www.sonic.com.