New Price to Dramatically Broaden Accessibility of Award-Winning Advanced Online Nonlinear Editor

MONTREAL, Quebec, Canada, October 22, 1998 - Discreet Logic today announced that smoke*, the Company’s much acclaimed online, nonlinear editor is now available at US $159,000. This new aggressive pricing brings Discreet Logic’s creative and advanced editing solution, designed for complete project finishing, to a significantly wider range of users. Digital artists and editors at smaller facilities, broadcasters, cable television operators, and offline editorial houses who want to significantly expand their ability to finish jobs in-house with superior return on investment and higher productivity, can now afford one of the industry’s premier online editing tools.

"Discreet Logic has evolved the online editing process with fire* and smoke* and has developed new ways to solve both challenging creative and day-to-day editorial problems," commented Mahmoud Al-Daccak, vice president of products at Discreet Logic. "smoke* provides a higher level of in-context interactivity and efficiency than other NLE available today, and this is a fundamental differentiator when it comes to editorial creativity."

"smoke* is an extremely powerful editing system, and now that the price is within range of mere mortals -- it's a package that's hard to beat," commented Charlie White, an Emmy-winning television producer and tutorial columnist and commentator with Digital Content Creation magazine. "Here's an online editing product that beats most traditional linear edit bays on capabilities, speed and cost with an easy-to-learn interface and extraordinary features. I especially like Discreet’s tracking controls and the way they're integrated throughout the program. The system is fast, extensible with hundreds of great plug-ins. You really do have to see smoke* to believe it." White is also an accomplished executive producer/web publisher at Milwaukee Public Television.

Advanced Pure Editing Toolset
Discreet Logic’s heritage is online, real-time tools with a proven ability to harness the power of Silicon Graphics platforms. smoke* provides unparalleled interactivity and speed with real-time editing while delivering non-compressed 4:4:4 image quality, productivity and connectivity on an open platform. smoke*’s advanced set of pure editing tools include: four edit modes including timeline, collapsed, storyboard and head/tail; multiple audio and video tracks per edit; full, nonlinear editing features (trim, slip, slide, etc.); drag-and-drop gestural interface; a revolutionary EDL management tool; precise colour correction and keying capabilities; and a flexible 3D text module. These features coupled with sophisticated paint and compositing capabilities allow editors to start a project and finish it in-house with suprior quality. smoke* may also be grown and differentiated through the addition of third party sparks* plug-ins, of which over 400 are available today.

Richard Szalwinski, CEO of Discreet Logic, concluded, "As customers look to invest in editorial tools that will form the foundation of their businesses for the future, the answer is Discreet. We bring sophisticated editorial tools that no one else can offer, and have delivered best of class Discreet Editing solutions that have enabled editors to work in ways that have never been possible before. If you are doing editing, you must look to Discreet."

Significantly Increase Project Efficiency Going from Off-line to On-line Discreet Logic’s smoke* and fire* include one of the most powerful EDL editing management tools in the industry. This implementation of editing decision list management significantly increases efficiency when going from off-line to on-line.

The EDL module supports all the major industry-standard EDL formats and integrates a full set of EDL editing and previewing tools that allow the user to make adjustments on-the-fly without waiting for auto conforms. smoke* and fire* support up to 15 EDL’s simultaneously to streamline the capture and assembly of multiple versions or multi-track clips. These two powerful editors also have their own native EDL export format that allows the user to export their own EDL and project directly to video tape.

Discreet Logic recently joined with other industry forces to support Advanced Authoring Format (AAF). AAF will be backward-compatible with Open Media Framework Interchange (OMFI), but contains more metadata. AAF is likely to become the industry standard for highly efficient inter-system project interchange.

End To End Connectivity and Workflow
The value of smoke* is further enhanced by its ability to integrate efficiently within a complete production environment, forming the editing core of a facility and enhancing end-to-end project workflow. Tools like high-speed archiving and clip sharing between networked systems simplify the process of image handling, and enable unprecedented project execution speed. This allows Discreet’s clients to maximize the productivity of the facility, turn more jobs, and make more money.

smoke* library and audio video media is fully compatible with other Discreet advanced systems products without the need for an intermediate format. This allows user to run smoke* and flame* on the same platform manipulating the same libraries and media natively. With Discreet’s intuitive picture based networking this sharing capability is extended between other Discreet Logic systems to offer a truly collaborative work environment between editing, effects and graphic design stations. Facilities also have the ability to offload some of the time consuming work to lower cost workstations using Discreet’s edit prep and Discreet background import-export utilities. This, in turn, gives facilities better overall efficiency and the ability to improve their bottom line.

smoke* training " Get Certified " FREE
From November 2nd to December 1998, Discreet Logic is offering free smoke* training to all new smoke* users and freelance editors. The training centres are located in Los Angeles, London and Montreal. Classes will be five days long and will have full certification level credit for smoke*. As smoke* is based around the same interface as fire*, the classes will also give attendees a firm grounding in the basics of fire*. To find out more about classes and qualification information please visit www.discreet.com.

Turnkey Price, Platform and Availability
smoke* is available in two configurations on the Silicon Graphics ® OCTANETM workstation. The OCTANE is modular so can be upgraded as a facilities needs change. smoke* including 64 minutes of Discreet Logic storage on the OCTANE SE is US$159,000 list price. smoke* on the OCTANE MXE lists at US$199,000. Both systems are available now.

About Discreet Logic
Discreet Logic, recently named Canada’s third fastest growing company by PROFIT Magazine, develops advanced systems and new media software used in the creation of digital imagery in visual effects, editing and production. Discreet’s products are used to develop imagery for video, broadcast, HDTV, the web, new media and feature films, including 1998 Summer blockbuster "ARMAGEDDON", and the 1998 Visual Effects Academy Award winners "Titanic" and "Independence Day".