Innovacom and others.....................................
InnovaCom, Electric Switch, and Technicolor Announce DVD Film Authoring Software, Services
In the wake of Sonic Solutions and Daiken making recent announcements about DVD-Video authoring systems, three new entrants have come into the field of systems and services for feature film production on DVD. InnovaCom, a Santa Clara, California-based MPEG-2 encoder development company, plans to release its new DVD authoring system at Fall COMDEX in November 1997; Electric Switch, a U.K.-based digital video compression company, has announced a DVD production, encoding, and authoring service in London; and Technicolor makes a move to embrace the DVD-Video format by offering mastering and pre-mastering services.
InnovaCom's planned system will include tools that will take advantage of the branching capabilities of the DVD-Video format to offer alternate multiple endings, multiple plots, background information, and language and sound variations. These film-enhancing capabilities will use film footage otherwise cut from the released version of a movie, and may also have some effect on the way movies are currently planned, filmed, and edited, according to InnovaCom's president Mark C. Koz. The authoring system, says Koz, will provide film personnel with the authoring tools necessary to tailor their movies to fit the multiple-thread format into their movie scenarios. Koz sees the possibility that, in the future, Academy Awards may factor in the creative use of the multiple threads and endings of a movie released on DVD. InnovaCom is concurrently working on video compression using their single-chip MPEG-2 integrated circuit encoding capability, will establish a production facility near Hollywood, and will license the DVD authoring technology to feature film producers, directors, editors, and their companies.
(InnovaCom, 2855 Kifer Road, Suite 100, Santa Clara, CA 95051; 408/727-2447; Fax 408/727-6275, stockgroup.com
Electric Switch, a U.K.-based digital video compression company, announced the establishment of a DVD production, encoding, and authoring service in London, run in association with Panasonic OWL, a U.K.-based subsidiary of Matsushita Electric Industrial Company. The service will use Panasonic's DVD Authoring system, developed by Panasonic OWL to bring DVD development capabilities--which have been in use for over 12 months at Matsushita's Digital Video Compression Corporation (DVCC) at Universal Studios in Hollywood--to European video content owners. The Panasonic system includes features such as regional coding capabilities and Macrovision analog copy protection, as well as encoding and formatting utilities.
The system consists of three stations: DVD Author, the authoring and scripting software program; MPEG-2 Encoder, the variable bit-rate encoding for DVD; and DVD Emulator, the system that enables playback of the disc image prior to manufacture. DVD Author provides scripting and scenario layout for linear and interactive titles, menu editing with "button" and "highlight" functions, and navigation commands for interactivity and DVD player control. The MPEG-2 video encoder is a variable bit rate, real-time system. The DVD emulator checks the formatted disc image for accuracy of authoring results before disc manufacture. (Electric Switch; +44 171 437-4402; DVD@electric-group.co.uk)
Technicolor has entered the DVD disc manufacturing business, making a multimillion-dollar purchase of DVD manufacturing equipment for its Camarillo facility. In this effort, Technicolor joins its sister company, Complete Post, which has recently added DVD compression and authoring capabilities. "The film processing and packaged media services of Technicolor and the advanced pre-mastering experience of Complete Post combine to enhance our competitive DVD manufacturing capabilities," says Lanny Raimondo, president of Technicolor's packaged media business. Technicolor is equipped to manufacturer all initial versions of the DVD disc configurations and will also be able to package discs to all specifications. "We already have the capacity to produce over 40 million discs and more than one million videocassettes every day," says Raimondo. "As a result, we supply many of the major studios and software providers. We believe that DVD will be an important additional market, growing alongside the massive videocassette sell-through business."
(Technicolor, 5255 East Mission Oaks Boulevard, Camarillo, CA 93012; 805/455-1122; Fax 805/445-9875) --Dana J. Parker |
