Sonic MyDVD 4 Expands Home DVD Creation To Next Level

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June 25, 2002--Sonic Solutions today introduced MyDVD 4 at PC Expo. MyDVD 4 is the latest version of Sonic's leading application software for personal DVD creation. With a host of new features, including support for photo slideshows on DVD or CD, motion menus like those found on Hollywood movies, and a new streamlined user interface, Sonic MyDVD 4 makes it easier than ever to convert home videos and now photos into professional-quality DVDs that can be shared with family and friends. MyDVD is the consumer DVD solution of choice among leading manufacturers of PCs, DVD drives and graphics cards including Adaptec, Compaq, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, NEC, Nova, Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Sony and many others. MyDVD 4 is debuting at PC Expo and will ship in July.

"Pioneer has long been a strong partner of Sonic Solutions, and we have been extremely pleased with the added value that MyDVD has provided to our DVD recording solutions," said Andy Parsons, Senior Vice-president of Industrial Video/Mass Storage Sales and Marketing, Pioneer Electronics (USA), Inc. "The significant new features in MyDVD 4, such as Hollywood-style motion menus and DVD slideshows, allow users to realize more creative potential when making their own DVDs."

MyDVD 4 is the only application that provides a full suite of DVD creation capabilities: recording of a DVD directly from a camcorder, creating motion menus, DVD-based slideshows with photos and sound, and automatic photographic archives. Version 4 is also OpenDVD compliant, enabling previously-burned DVDs to be opened, re-edited, updated with new video content, and re-burned to recordable DVD media. MyDVD 4 adds OpenDVD support for the new slideshow and motion menu capabilities, as well.

"MyDVD 4 represents the culmination of significant behavioral and user research -- we not only worked with MyDVD users to determine what they most wanted to share on DVDs, but analyzed how they worked with their digital video and photos, as well," said Mark Ely, General Manager, Desktop Products Group at Sonic. "The end result is an application which we believe sets new standards for both functionality and ease-of-use, and heralds a revolution in sharing video and pictures similar to the advent of desktop publishing."

New MyDVD 4 features include:

Motion Menus -- A high-performance, video compositing engine allows full-motion video to be used for menu backgrounds and buttons, simply by selecting a motion menu style or using movies from a camcorder or the Internet. MyDVD 4 also includes a selection of professionally-designed motion menu backgrounds.

DVD Slideshows - MyDVD 4 enables users to create slideshows using scanned photos or pictures from a digital camera. Taking advantage of the slideshow capabilities of the DVD-Video specification, MyDVD slideshow images are progressively encoded and displayed at high bitrates, resulting in a superior-quality image. Motion-video transitions can easily be added between slides as well as music or voice narration. Like DVD-videos, photo slideshows created with MyDVD are OpenDVD compliant and can be re-edited and updated at any time.

Photo Archives - Using Sonic's advanced implementation of the new OpenDVD standard, MyDVD automatically stores original JPEG images on the DVD, enabling users to access and print high-resolution images of any picture in their slideshow. This provides the user with the convenience of creating a slideshow for DVD playback as well as a high-resolution JPEG archive on a single disk.

Enhanced User Interface - Incorporating feedback from user focus groups and human interface researchers, MyDVD 4's user interface is more intuitive and the workflow more efficient, yielding the best possible experience for consumers as they create their DVD and Video CD titles.

MyDVD 4.0 also incorporates and refines technology pioneered by the MyDVD 3 family of products, including:

OpenDVD support -- MyDVD version 4 creates OpenDVD-compliant discs, DVD titles which can be opened, changed and edited, making it possible to directly capture video to DVD, watch the DVD on a TV or PC, and then put the disc back into a DVD writer to add more video clips, rename chapters, change menu graphics, or delete unwanted scenes.

Edit-on-DVD -- Sonic MyDVD uses unique technology that allows changes made to OpenDVD-compliant discs to be virtually instantaneous without having to reload the original content to hard disc.

Video CD support -- For users burning to CD, Video CD 2.0 support with interactive menus is standard in MyDVD, allowing users with CD burners to inexpensively create discs that are compatible with the large installed base of set-top DVD players.

Adobe Photoshop Sonic Style Creator -- With its own custom Photoshop plug-in, Sonic has made it possible for anyone to create their own DVD styles using Adobe Photoshop, and is compatible with the new DSS 2.0 DVD Style Sheet Specification for DVD navigation.

Enhanced video editing with MyDVD Video Suite -- With MyDVD 4 Video Suite, which includes ArcSoft ShowBiz, video clips can easily be moved between MyDVD and ShowBiz, where they can be edited, and then brought back into MyDVD.

MyDVD 4 is now available for OEM evaluation. Retail versions of MyDVD 4 and MyDVD 4 Video Suite will ship in July.

For more information visit http://www.mydvd.com.