Spruce Technologies, Inc. has introduced Version 2.0 of DVDMaestro, the world's leading Windows NT-based DVD authoring solution. In addition to offering the world's first toolkit for producing hybrid discs combining the Web and DVD, DVDMaestro 2.0 includes significant new features that enhance the authoring process.

"With the introduction of DVDMaestro 2.0, we are meeting our promise of moving DVD production beyond the expected," says Joe Matheny, Spruce Product Manager. "The common thread among all the new things we've added to DVDMaestro is that they broaden the creative palette available to DVD producers without adding complexity. DVDMaestro is the complete solution for taking all your individual pieces of digital creativity and putting them to work in entirely new ways."

Intelligent PhotoShop Support For Creating DVD Menus
DVDMaestro Version 2.0 now provides the first intelligent means of importing Adobe PhotoShop files for use in creating rich DVD menu screens. DVDMaestro intelligently identifies the multiple layers that make up a PhotoShop file, then automatically turns those layers into DVD specification-compliant menu components in the DVDMaestro interface. This makes it much easier for producers to create visually appealing menu screens.

Support for DVD-based slide shows and still shows
DVDMaestro now supports the DVD specification for creating presentation style DVD titles. Users can easily create titles that run automatically based on time or they can be driven by end user input such as set top remote control units or PC controllers such as keystrokes and mice. This feature is of particular value for a broad range of corporate applications including sales and marketing tools and interactive kiosks.

Direct Editing on the DVDMaestro Timeline
DVDMaestro now allows the user to perform basic editing functions directly on the interface's non-linear editing-style timeline. This enables the user to implement and modify decisions such as trimming the tops and tails of chapters' on the fly.

The World's First WebDVD Toolkit
In a separate announcement, Spruce also announced the new Spruce Convergence Pack for DVDMaestro Version 2.0. Spruce Convergence is the first-ever-integrated toolkit for developing hybrid WebDVD titles that combine the video, audio and multi-track capabilities of DVD with the immediacy and transactional capability of the World Wide Web. Spruce Convergence enables producers to create dynamic, interactive DVD titles that connect to web resources for e-commerce, entertainment and corporate training applications, as well as one-to-one marketing experiences and business to business applications of all kinds.

Additional features
The new software also features improvements to the system's encoding, segment-based re-encoding and two-pass VBR features.

About Spruce Technologies, Inc.
Spruce Technologies was established to create and market a new generation of DVD authoring systems for both high-end Hollywood content and the growing and increasingly important corporate market. Based in San Jose, California, Spruce combines the best Silicon Valley software expertise with extensive DVD, MPEG and postproduction knowledge.