Digigami MegaPEG.X MPEG VBR rivals WindowsMedia, Real and Macromedia Flash for Internet Video

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Digigami ships MegaPEG.X Pro for Macintosh

San Diego, CA - November 28, 2004 · Digigami today announced it is now shipping Digigami MegaPEG.X Pro, a new MPEG VBR (variable bitrate) encoder for Apple Macintosh computers with Mac OS X. The quality, file size and bitrate output from this revolutionary new compression tool rivals or exceeds competing formats such as WindowsMedia, Flash and Real (even MPEG-4), while continuing to support the universally recognized international standard known as ISO/IEC-11172 or simply 'MPEG-1'.

The new product, which is capable of producing a high quality 320x240x24fps movie with stereo audio (ISO/IEC 11172-3 Layer 2, 64kbps) at a combined average bitrate as low as 200 kbps (0.2 Mbs), provides what many would say is the closest thing to an open, universally accessible streaming video format for the global internet/world wide web, including geographical regions employing lower bandwidth connections and older Power Macintosh and PC-compatible computers.

"With Digigami MegaPEG.X Pro, common video content can be compressed to MPEG-1 VBR at 320x240x24fps at well under 500 kbps (0.5 megabits/sec), which is very competitive with the current offerings from Microsoft, Real and even MPEG-4 for internet video delivery. And once we get within even 250 kbps of any other format, the irrevocable and undeniable advantages of the MPEG-1 international standard simply tip the scales to our advantage." said 清岡家元, developer of both MegaPEG.X and early streaming-video plug-in CineWeb (1996), and CTO of Digigami, Inc.

Since its ratification as an international standard in 1991, the MPEG-1 format has gained unprecedented support and volume in installed players, far exceeding any individual proprietary format from Macromedia, RealNetworks, or Microsoft. Starting in 1996 with the introduction of the ActiveMovie (now 'WindowsMedia') plug-in for Internet Explorer, and followed by the introduction in early 1997 of support in the QuickTime browser plug-in for Power Macintosh, MPEG-1 streaming audio/video support has been quietly blanketing the globe with increased and improved support in every new browser and operating system. The MPEG-1 streaming format is also widely supported on all forms of Unix, including Linux and BSD, with the VideoLAN streaming client. MPEG-1 support has also been included with RealNetworks RealPlayer since version 7.

In employing MPEG-1 as the format for streaming video delivery, the installed base of playback-ready clients numbers in the hundreds of millions. Every new Windows ('Wintel') and Macintosh computer shipped since 1999 has had MPEG-1 streaming audio/video support pre-loaded, with no extra downloads or plug-ins required. Furthermore, MPEG-1 files can be streamed from any web server without any special per-server (read: costly) streaming software. The same MPEG-1 movie files can be embedded in browser windows, downloaded to a local computer for later viewing, and burned to ISO-9660 CDs for universal backup and retrieval.

There are many compelling reasons to deliver video in a format which will not require a person to stop and download an additional plug-in or player software. Firstly, in a corporate or public environment, the person may not have the necessary administrative privileges to install new software. Secondly, finding and downloading plug-ins can be confusing, time-consuming or both. Thirdly, and most importantly, the person's computer may not be powerful enough to play a modern format such as MPEG-4 or WindowsMedia 9. Half an hour after surfing into your web site, the person could still be unable to view your media file for any of these reasons, resulting in a customer lost or an opportunity missed.

"The key to understanding how we achieve this with a 12-year old ISO video format can be found in the standard itself. The ISO MPEG-1 standard does not specify how a video encoder works, it simply describes the syntax (or format) of the MPEG-1 movie file. If you can invent or design a new technique that creates an MPEG-1 file with the correct syntax/format, then it automatically conforms to the ISO standard," continued Kiyooka. "MPEG-1 is an asymmetric compression format, which means it uses a great deal more horsepower to compress than it does to play. And so what we've done is taken the enormous processing power of the new G5 CPUs in the latest Apple computers, and leveraged the Altivec (Velocity Engine) and its mathematical floating point unit to throw huge amounts of processing at MPEG-1, with all the latest algorithms and techniques, including some new ones of our own design. In addition, we have delivered a new kind of encoding (compression) environment that allows the compressionist/engineer/author to fully visualize, understand and re-configure the encoding process. This extra advantage alone results in at least 25% greater efficiency in the video compression process, simply by allowing the compressionist to find and eliminate waste."

The new MegaPEG.X Pro product from Digigami is also a first-class Macintosh desktop application, complete with full support for the Macintosh Aqua user interface, Apple QuickTime(tm) and G4/G5 desktop supercomputers running Mac OS X 10.2 ('Jaguar') or higher. MegaPEG.X can compress any file produced by both consumer and professional Apple video editing tools including iMovie, Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express and QuickTime Player Pro.

In addition to the standard features one might come to expect with any video compression tool, such as a wide variety of preset encoding templates, MegaPEG.X also includes innovative new features for bitrate and compression analysis, allowing the author/compressionist to 'see inside' the workings of the MPEG compression engine. This quantitative analysis tool provides the missing link which bridges the gap between the wide array of compression parameters available to the user, and their resultant effect on the video compression. The built-in analysis tool is derived from the expansive feature set of Digigami MPressionist HD: the company's comprehensive diagnostic tool for ATSC HDTV broadcast engineers working with MPEG-2 video in a DTV or HDTV environment.

Sample compressed movie files and accompanying analysis, demonstrating the superior low-bitrate capabilities of MegaPEG.X, are available from Digigami's web site at http://www.digigami.com/megapeg/. The sample files can be both streamed, or downloaded to a computer and played with QuickTime Player, Windows Media Player or VideoLAN Client.

Sample Movies:
http://www.digigami.com/megapeg/
http://homepage.mac.com/digigami/

Demo Version of Digigami MegaPEG.X
http://www.digigami.com/download/

Pricing and Availability
Digigami MegaPEG.X Pro 2.0 is available now at the special introductory price of $239.76 directly from the Digigami online store on the web at www.digigami.com. Site licenses, educational and volume discounts are available.

Digigami is a privately held company headquartered in the Anza Borrego desert east of San Diego, California. Digigami was founded in 1994 and released its flagship MPEG-1/MPEG-2 encoder, MegaPEG in 1996 along with an early Netscape plug-in that provided streaming video in AVI, QuickTime and MPEG-1 formats. For the past 10 years, Digigami has been continuously improving its MPEG compression technology and MegaPEG.X Pro is the most recent addition to the Digigami line.

For details and pricing information on all Digigami products, please visit our Web site at http://www.digigami.com/.

References
REDMOND, Wash. - March 5, 1996 - Microsoft Corp. today announced Microsoft® ActiveMovie(TM)
"ActiveMovie is capable of decoding MPEG entirely in software and playing it back full screen on an Intel®. 90 Mhz Pentium®-based PC with a low-cost graphics adapter at 24 frames-per-second with 11 KHz stereo."
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1996/mar96/actmovpr.asp

Cupertino, Calif.--Jan. 24, 1997 - Apple® Introduces High-Quality MPEG Software for QuickTime(tm)
"The MPEG extension will also work seamlessly with the QuickTime(tm) plug-in for Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer, enabling real-time, live MPEG playback inside these browsers."
http://www.mactech.com/news/archivedisplay.mgi?id=000001905883

ISO/IEC 11172 Standard MPEG-1 (1993, 1996)
http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/standards/mpeg-1/mpeg-1.htm

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Digigami product names are trademarks of Digigami, Inc. Apple and Apple Cinema Display are the trademarks of Apple Computer Inc. WindowsMedia is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Real is a trademark of RealNetworks. Flash is a trademark of Macromedia. We're sure that the word 'cucumber' has also been trademarked, we're just not certain as to who.