Power Macintosh G3s Offer High-Definition Digital Video Authoring
Apple Computer has announced the introduction of a build-to-order (BTO) add-on option that offers Panasonicís LF-D101 DVD-RAM drive with twice the transfer rates and four times the capacity of CD storage. With the LF-D101 the newest Power Macintosh GE personal computers can deliver high-definition digital video authoring and audio editing capabilities to creative and design professionals and other customers on the leading edge of technology. G3 pricing starts at $1,599 and the DVD-RAM drive option can be included for another $799. The Panasonic DVD-RAM drive supports 2.6MB single-sided DVD-RAM media which can store up to one hour of MPEG-2 DVD-Video, five hours of Dolby Digital AC-3 coding, 68 high-resolution color photos, 800 256-color VGA screen captures, or 1.3 million pages of text. The drive provides an access speed of 120ms, a data transfer rate of up to 10.5MB/second and a 2MB buffer. Built into every Macintosh G3 are ATR RAGE 128 graphics, Universal Serial Bus (USB) connectors, 10/100Base-T Ethernet, and a Fire WireÆ port. FireWire is a high performance standard for personal computers and consumer electronics that was invented by Apple in the early 1990s and is now compatible with Microsoft and Intel hardware. FireWire supplies data transmission rates up to 400MB/second and up to 63 devices can be attached to a single bus. This year more than 20 new FireWire products debuted for the Macintosh platform, including analog-to-digital converters, digital audio mixers, and large-capacity archival storage devices. With all this capability customers will be able to achieve near-professional-quality digital video at a fraction of the cost of systems selling for more than $20,000. Sonic Solutions, a leader in DVD authoring and production systems is actively supporting the Macintosh G3 platform with a full line of DVD production tools, including DVD Creator, DesktopDVD, and SonicStudio, and as well, the new digital audio workstation for DVD-Audio that supports 96kHz/24-bit audio editing. With Sonic tools, G3 users can take projects from initial concept to CD, DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, or DVD-ROM. Sonic Solutionsís DVD authoring systems range in price from less than $20,000 to $90,000. For more information contact Apple Computer at 408 996 1010, www.apple.com; Panasonic at 408 942 2926, www.panasonic.com ; and Sonic Solutions at 415 893 8000, www.sonic.com.