CinemaNow Launches Online Movie Studio

CinemaNow, Inc., the newly created online destination for watching and making films, announced Thursday a flurry of business activity including the launch of its new site at www.cinemanow.com; a new series of strategic partnerships with Microsoft, iBEAM Broadcastingô and encoding.com; and a new series of film acquisitions from Chamber of Poets.The announcements were made by the Company's CEO, Curt Marvis. Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) will be supporting CinemaNow in both broadband content preparation and accelerated distribution of CinemaNow content to broadband home users. Broadband technology, used in cable modems, digital subscriber lines (DSL) and other high-speed connections, offers radically improved video quality performance compared with existing technologies, fundamentally changing how people use and experience the Web.CinemaNow has also become an official content partner in the Microsoft Windows Media Broadband Jumpstart Initiative.iBEAM Broadcasting, the world's largest streaming media distribution network, will be responsible for the Company's media streaming. iBEAM's rapidly growing network will allow CinemaNow to deliver streams at rates of up to 700Kbps to a large and previously untapped audience.The new iBEAM distribution architecture helps to deliver consistent and uninterrupted performance providing viewers the ability to watch full-length feature films.Encoding.com will enable the efforts of CinemaNow by delivering high quality encoding services at a variety of bandwidth rates, and will work closely with CinemaNow to further develop complete digital media solutions that include the capture, management and distribution of content on the Internet.On the heels of its recent acquisition of 400 titles from Hong Kong Cinema distributors Tai Seng Video, the company also announced it has acquired the rights to ""News From The West,"" a collection of 13 short films from the cutting edge filmmaking group known as Chamber of Poets. These high impact shorts, known as ""Pulse"" movies, combine spoken word poetry and music, with dazzling imagery and digital surround sound audio, and have been heralded as a new art form.The new site, www.cinemanow.com, represents the efforts of a previously announced strategic relationship with top interactive architect and solutions builder Xceed (Nasdaq: XCED). The companies combined to create an original broadband online experience. Upon logging on to cinemanow.com, the visitor will encounter a clean, uncluttered layout and apparent lack of a navigational tool bar.The design team created a unique navigational system that is based on CinemaNow's corporate logo, a stylized 35mm motion picture reel. Each of the six holes within the reel is a link to a different area of the site, including Watch, Make, Win, Talk, Why, and Buy.The ""Watch"" section of the site offers visitors the opportunity to enter an online screening room and watch full-length feature films and shorts. Among the features currently available is Trimark Pictures' (Nasdaq: TMRK) cult classic film ""Warlock,"" and the film ""Wing Chun"" starring Michelle Yeoh from the Tai Seng Video collection.Three short films from the ""Chamber Of Poets"" are also available. The Company will build upon these libraries with further acquisitions, all of which will be available in this area of the site.Participants can submit various works in the 'Make' section, and thereby help ""break ground"" on a virtual studio set to include all the elements of a 'brick and mortar' studio; creative development, distribution, business affairs and research departments.The CinemaNow site is collecting independent films, movie scripts and actor/actress portfolios to prepare for the launch of its virtual studio. The studio will form an online community where directors, writers, producers, and actors and actresses can interact to further the art of film and their own careers.The ""Win"" area of CinemaNow is dedicated to movie buffs of all ages. It is in this section where visitors can join the Freaks of Cinema Knowledge (F.O.C.K.) club and play The F.O.C.K. Club movie trivia game to win prizes.The ""Talk"" and ""Why"" areas of the site offer information on the company and the opportunity for users to provide feedback as to how they would like to see the site develop.The ""Buy"" section includes an e-commerce store which will be run in conjunction with Artist Direct. In addition, links will be provided to purchase videos and DVD products from both Tai Seng Video and The Chamber of Poets.""We have been working feverishly with Xceed and our new partners, Microsoft, iBEAM, encoding.com, Tai Seng and The Chamber Of Poets to get this site up and running,"" said Marvis. ""The excitement around here is building on a daily basis and the new year will see us making steady additions to both our exclusive film library and virtual studio. It's a great way to be entering the new millennium!""Upon logging on to CinemaNow.com, visitors will take a look at the future of broadband technology by allowing them the ability to view full-screen feature length films, right from their PC. The site incorporates the advanced features found in the Flash 4.0 software package, including bandwidth profiling and stand-alone multimedia viewer applications. Both of these features work to make movie viewing possible on the widest range of PC/modem combinations.About CinemaNowCinemaNow is an online destination dedicated to all forms of cinema where its members can watch movies-on-demand and participate in the process of making movies. CinemaNow currently has over five hundred films in its library and is continuing to expand its library of exclusively licensed theatrical and short films.About Xceed Inc.Xceed (www.xceed.com) helps companies develop e-commerce and e-business solutions, improving people and business performance through communication tools, techniques, and technologies. With over 400 professionals, Xceed is headquartered in New York City with offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Chicago, Atlanta and Riyadh.