Minerva (CUBE inside) equipment was used to author a DVD containing Clinton's Grand Jury testimony. I bought this DVD for .02 from netflix.com, and I paid more than it is worth! Last night I watched it for the first time. It was encoded from a satellite feed, so the picture quality is not very good. The disc is encoded in such a way that my pause control would not work!! Although the disc is divided into 99 chapters, each corresponding to a different question or topic, the disc has no table of contents that would allow you locate the chapter that you want to see. The beginning of the testimony is chopped off, and a still containing a title screen is flashed for only 1/4 second, and is full of macroblock artifacts. A very crappy authoring job, to say the least.
It is worth the .02 to put it on fast forward to watch Slick Willie waving his arms, talking the talk, and delivering his B.S. By the way, the problem is not with Minerva's equipment, it is with Media Galleries taking only 20 damn minutes to author the title.
I shouldn't say that the disc is crappy, because it depends on what the definition of is is. ;-)
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Minerva Impression Used to Author "President Clinton's Grand Jury
Testimony" DVD
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BNTERTAINMENT WIRE)--Oct. 1, 1998--
Title Production Completed in Less Than Two Days Using Efficient, State-of-the-art Dvd Authoring and Compression Tools
Minerva Impression(tm), the new DVD authoring solution from Minerva Systems, Inc., was used by Media Galleries to
produce the much acclaimed President Clinton's Grand Jury Testimony DVD title.
Having selected Minerva for its superior authoring and encoding technology, Media Galleries was able to make this
remarkable event available in a timely fashion on DVD, providing viewers an opportunity to immediately access any part of
the testimony. The actual DVD authoring was performed in less than twenty minutes using Minerva Impression software. This
extremely quick turnaround enabled the title production to be completed in less than two days.
"On Monday, we set out to see if it was possible to create a DVD by mid-week using a competing DVD authoring system,"
said Arthur Mrozowski, President of Media Galleries. "After working through the night, we realized that the tool was too
complex and unstable to accomplish the task. Customer support was not available when we needed them! In the meantime,
major news networks and business journals were responding with great interest to our project. We needed immediate help
and called Minerva Systems. The people at Minerva Systems were extremely responsive. Their state-of-the-art tools
performed brilliantly and their people supported our fight to the finish. We shipped the DVD on Saturday and purchased a
Minerva system that following Monday. When we battle the bits now, we are confident that we will win."
Several DVD industry milestones were set in the production of this DVD title. The DVD-Video specification supports up to
99 chapters within one title, and all 99 chapters were utilized to offer random access into all key segments of the testimony. [They should have given the chapters names so they have some meaning. How would you like a CD having 12 songs with no names, not even on the CD jacket???]
More than four hours of video were compressed and stored on a single side, single layer disc. Recognizing that the quality of
the source audio and video was quite poor, the Minerva Compressionist(R) pre-processing filters were utilized to reduce noise
and enhance image quality. Ease-of-use and reliability found in all Minerva tools enabled the production to be completed
without any setbacks.
Minerva Impression
Minerva Impression is an interactive video authoring software solution for DVD publishing. Minerva Impression is
groundbreaking software designed to energize the growing community of DVD developers who need flexible and easy-to-use
tools. Minerva's new DVD authoring software allows video, audio and still images to be constructed into an interactive project
with a 100% graphical "drag and drop" interface.
Media Galleries, Inc.
Media Galleries, Inc. is a full service electronic media development and publishing company that builds bridges between
technology and the arts. The five year old company specializes in creating and marketing CD-ROM and DVD products from
initial concept through the distribution channel. Media Galleries is headquartered at 311 Soquel Avenue, Santa Cruz, CA,
95060. Tel: 408/662-0612 Fax: 408/685-0340. E-mail:cdromart@mediagalleries.com. Address on the World Wide Web:
mediagalleries.com.
Minerva Systems, Inc.
Minerva Systems, Inc., founded in 1992, is the leading supplier of high-quality MPEG-based digital video publishing and
distribution solutions. Minerva's products are used in post-production facilities, DVD replication facilities, telephone and cable
television network facilities, advertising agencies, educational institutions and corporations worldwide. Minerva Systems is
headquartered at 1585 Charleston Road, Mountain View, CA, 94043. Tel.: 650/940-1383. Fax: 650/940-1450. Address on
the World Wide Web: minervasys.com.
Note to Editors: The Minerva logo is a trademark, and Minerva is a registered trademark of Minerva Systems, Inc. All other
brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
CONTACT: Minerva Systems
Ian Locke, 650/940-1383
info@minervasys.com |
