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Major New York Postproduction Facilities Invest in Avid DS Nitris
As demand for HD finishing for commercials, television, and films increases, companies choose real-time 10-bit solution from Avid
Avid Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVID) today announced that three major New York City-based postproduction facilities - FrameRunner, PostWorks, and Image Group - are among the first to purchase the Avid DS Nitris system, which hit the market worldwide last week. Each company is adding an Avid DS Nitris system to its existing arsenal of Avid® products and will use it to finish increasing amounts of HD work, including commercials, television programs, and feature films.
"The interest in short- and long-form HD projects from some of our most high-profile clients - such as CBS and Comedy Central - has been growing steadily, and we felt it essential to make the move to HD without sacrificing the performance and features we've come to expect from SD systems. Avid DS Nitris meets all of our needs in one box, and it's backed by the company that wrote the book on nonlinear postproduction," said Tom Emmenegger, president of FrameRunner.
"Avid DS Nitris has many of the Media Composer® features that our editors know and love, and it's faster than anything else out there," said Billy Baldwin, president of PostWorks. "The capability to do real-time effects and playback with uncompressed 10-bit HD media has been on everyone's wish list for some time now. Today, with Avid DS Nitris, it's a reality. We're already using the system to finish a Bruce Springsteen DVD and a Tupac Shakur documentary for MTV."
Willie Sheehy, president of Image Group, which serves clients such as MTV, Paramount Pictures, ESPN, and Cablevision, added, "Image Group has always been on the cutting-edge of HD technology, and we couldn't wait to get our hands on Avid DS Nitris. With a product that delivers so much power and flexibility - at such an unbeatable price - Avid is basically redefining the HD postproduction landscape. We're getting a level of compatibility between Avid DS Nitris and our fleet of Media Composer systems that simply isn't possible with the other HD products we own. That's huge for us, because our offline work, the bulk of which is done on Media Composer, can now be easily transferred to Avid DS Nitris for HD finishing - with very little rework involved."
As the most robust system in Avid's Digital Nonlinear Accelerator family, or Avid DNA, the Avid DS Nitris system augments host-based processing with the media processing power of more than 30 of today's latest Pentium 4 processors. It is the only finishing tool on the market to deliver real-time effects and color correction with two streams of uncompressed 10-bit HD media and eight streams of 10-bit uncompressed SD media. The Avid DS Nitris system supports a wide range of high-quality formats, from compressed SD to 2K, and delivers a deep set of video and audio editing capabilities - including the color correction feature found in the Symphony system.
"It's great to see such an immediate and positive response to Avid DS Nitris from some of the top New York postproduction facilities," said Alan Hoff, director of Editors Product Management for Avid. "Whether it's used for feature films, commercials, or television work, Avid DS Nitris offers more extensive real-time editing, graphics, and compositing capabilities than any other linear or nonlinear system. Customers who embrace Avid DS Nitris stand to gain a significant competitive advantage in this rapidly growing HD postproduction market."
About Avid Technology, Inc.
Avid Technology, Inc. is the world leader in digital nonlinear media creation, management and distribution solutions, enabling film, video, audio, animation, games, and broadcast news professionals to work more efficiently, productively, and creatively. For more information about the company's Oscar®, Grammy®, and Emmy® award-winning products and services, please visit: www.avid.com.
© 2003 Avid Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. Product features, specifications, system requirements, and availability are subject to change without notice. Avid, Film Composer, Avid DNA, Digital Nonlinear Accelerator, Nitris, Media Composer, and Symphony are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Avid Technology, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Avid received an Oscar statuette representing the 1998 Scientific and Technical Award for the concept, design and engineering of the Avid Film Composer® system for motion picture editing. Oscar is a trademark and service mark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Emmy is a registered trademark of ATAS/NATAS. Grammy is a trademark of The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, Inc. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.
CONTACT: Avid Technology, Inc.
Alice Eubank, 978-640-3325
alice_eubank@avid.com
or
Weber Shandwick
Eleanor McMahon, 617-520-7100
emcmahon@webershandwick.com
SOURCE: Avid Technology, Inc.