Normally, we don't spend a lot of time obsessing about what other encoder manufacturers are doing. We have a product roadmap and we're sticking with it. I'd say when we first released our technical encoding and analysis tools afew eyebrows were raised - but it is evident that as the sophistication of the average pro DVD author grows, our tools become increasingly attractive.

I recently visited the website of Sonic Solutions, who are most certainly one of the leaders in DVD, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD authoring technology. They gained initial leadership in this market by becoming the US distributor for Scenarist, which was the first DVD authoring tool (ever - AFAIK). Scenarist was developed by a Japanese company DAIKEN. Much in the way that Apple gained a foothold by acquiring Spruce Technologies.

Sonic has recently introduced some semi-automated yet basic (IMO, compared to MPressionist HDTV) picture quality analysis tools as part of their compression package. Some might say they are copying us, which would make us one of the leaders in this market.