FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Digigami ships "MegaPEG.X Pro DVD Render Farm Bundle"

San Diego, CA - March 24, 2005 · Digigami today announced it is now shipping a MegaPEG.X Pro DVD Render Farm Bundle, which combines multiple versions of Digigami's innovative MegaPEG.X Pro DVD encoder into a functional suite aimed at increasing project throughput in your post facility. Turn your collection of Macintosh computers into an asset for your DVD projects, putting your current and previous generation machines to work as a rendering farm.

We all like to upgrade our hardware to take advantage of the latest features of Final Cut Pro, work with more simultaneous video streams, real-time effects, and higher resolutions. With the "MegaPEG.X Pro DVD Render Farm Bundle" you can make all your past OSX workstations into functional parts of your production pipeline, leaving your newest, and primary edit system free to work at full speed without significant background processing.

"I've usually got several DVD authoring projects on the table at any time; projects for friends that I do for challenge, enjoyment and learning." said Digigami CTO, 清岡家元. "A current project involves converting two 30-minute programs professionally done with multiple cameras and BETACAM SP. I setup an older G4 450Mhz Graphite tower running Jaguar as a rendering machine running MegaPEG.X Pro G4. The material for this particular project I would consider to be an 'easy' encode - there is plenty of room in the bit budget and the motion in the scenes is average. I spent about 30 minutes doing test encodes on the G4. Once I had something that fit the bitrate requirements, I setup a batch and let it run while I went back to work on my main authoring system. A few hours later the G4 had completed the MPEG-2 tests along with matched stereo .AIFF tracks, and I copied them onto a small external Firewire drive. Then, I simply opened the batch settings and dialed the quality (and encoding time) up to the maximum. Because moving the quality slider does not alter the GOP structure of the encoding, the final job can simply chug away (for about 36 hours), while I'm free to import the 'first-pass' MPEG-2 files into DVD Studio Pro and author the menus and logical structure of the two discs. Running the final compression job on the G5 would have been much faster, but I had plenty to do while the job progressed. But best of all, my main machine(s) were not encumbered with the CPU loading of a background compression."

The Digigami "MegaPEG.X Pro DVD Render Farm Bundle", which is available in a variety of license packages, aims at addressing the needs of a busy production environment. The bundle includes multiple licenses of the two flavors of Digigami MegaPEG.X and versions for the three (G3/G4/G5) processors that run OSX:

MegaPEG.X Pro VersionGuidelines for Production Use
MegaPEG.X Pro (G4/G5) QT
QuickTime Export plug-in		Plugs directly into Final Cut Pro HD and Final Cut Pro Express, allowing you to initiate test or final compression jobs directly from the Final Cut timeline, without intermediate files or rendering to a reference movie. Optimized for G4 and G5 processors. Also integrates with iMovie, allowing you to use any modern Macintosh as a capture station without adding additional editing software.
MegaPEG.X Pro G5 Batch For use on your newest machine, this batch encoder is optimized for G5 processors running compression jobs in the background, or for compressing with the highest quality (longest encoding time) in overnight batches. On the fastest setting, can generate a 720x480x24p MPEG-2 comp for your DVD authoring project at close to real-time encoding speeds (G5 only).
MegaPEG.X Pro G4 Batch For use on your G4 machines, this encoder is highly capable of getting the toughest encoding jobs done, even on older 450 Mhz G4 towers and G4 Titanium PowerBooks. Or add one or two new Mac Minis and run them headless on your renderfarm using Apple Remote Desktop.
MegaPEG.X G3 Batch For use on your older G3 towers, G3 iBooks or anything newer, this encoder can handle all but the most difficult encoding jobs. Useful for shorter pieces, DVD supplemental materials at lower resolution, making streaming video for the internet, or compressing MPEG-1. If you've got the time to wait, performs exactly the same job as the G5 version, slower.

Unique to the MegaPEG.X Pro DVD compression environment is the inclusion of picture quality analysis and bitrate/compression analysis tools. Unlike other compression tools which may mysteriously produce a MPEG bitstream that DVD Studio Pro cannot use in a build, MegaPEG.X Pro allows you to identify potential problems with the MPEG-2 assets before attempting to build a disc image. Additional displays provide the compressionist with much-needed feedback as to which segments of a long program have been 'heavily compressed' - typically the regions where compression artifacts (blocks, ringing, pixelization, mosquito effects) occur. Furthermore, the compression process can be paused at any time and the intermediate results 'reviewed' for artifacts, proper GOP structure and picture quality.

All versions of MegaPEG.X Pro have a consistent user-experience with a modern Aqua Macintosh interface. No secret unix commands, daemons or mysterious handshakes. Batches are created with drag and drop, and settings can be copied and pasted to and from the scrap/clipboard, making the reuse of encoding settings a snap. Batch files are standard Macintosh files, and can be moved from workstation to workstation along with, or without source materials. Keep or change folder structures as you move files around, without losing settings or disturbing the organization of your materials.

"We have a consistent file format among all versions of our Batch encoder. This means you can prepare batches on your primary machine and run them overnight on a G3/G4/G5 elsewhere on the network. You can even use the Demo version of our Batch encoder software to do create batches and perform test encodes, thereby eliminating the need for an extra license simply for prepping jobs."

Digigami MegaPEG.X Pro product page: http://www.digigami.com/megapeg/
Demo versions of Digigami Pro video applications: http://www.digigami.com/download/

Pricing and Availability
Digigami "MegaPEG.X Pro DVD Render Farm" Bundle is available now in three configurations, starting at $250.00 USD.

Bundle NameBundle Contents & License SeatsPrice
5-in-1 Bundle3-Seat License for MegaPEG.X Pro G4/G5 Batch.
1-Seat License MegaPEG.X Pro QT (compress from Final Cut Pro timeline)
1-Seat License MegaPEG.X G3 Batch (Older machines).		$444.00 USD
4-in-1 Bundle2-Seat License for MegaPEG.X Pro G4/G5 Batch.
1-Seat License MegaPEG.X Pro QT (compress from Final Cut Pro timeline)
1-Seat License MegaPEG.X G3 Batch (Older machines).		$360.00 USD
3-in-1 Bundle1-Seat License for MegaPEG.X Pro G4/G5 Batch.
1-Seat License MegaPEG.X Pro QT (compress from Final Cut Pro timeline)
1-Seat License MegaPEG.X G3 Batch (Older machines).		$250.00 USD

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; MPressionist.X Pro and MegaPEG.X Pro are the most recent additions to the Digigami line.

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

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Digigami product names are trademarks of Digigami, Inc. Apple, DVD Studio Pro and Velocity Engine are the trademarks of Apple Computer Inc. Altivec is a trademark of Freescale Semiconductor Inc. MPEG is the colloquial acronym for the international video compression standard created by the Motion Pictures Experts Group aka ISO/IEC-11172 (MPEG-1) and ISO/IEC 13818 (MPEG-2).