"..Sonic Solutions announced today a major enhancement to its high-end DVD Creator MPEG-2 encoding systems which allows direct 24P digital video input from Avid Symphony Universal, Avid's high-end editorial finishing and 24P Universal mastering system.

With Sonic's new Direct-24 input capability, DVD Creator can encode film content directly from a 24 FPS (frame-per-second) film source, making it possible to encode film material at speeds faster than real time and at the same time deliver higher quality.

Sonic's new technology speeds video encoding by eliminating the time-consuming process known as "inverse telecine". Since film and video run at different frame rates, 24 frame-per-second film material must be converted to 60-field (30 frame) -per-second video. This process, known as 2:3 pulldown, adds redundant video fields to the 24-frame video in order for it to play back correctly on an NTSC video monitor. The MPEG-2 video format used in DVD is capable of storing the encoded film content in its original 24 frame-per-second format. In order to achieve the best quality video for DVD, the duplicate fields that were added during the telecine process must now be removed during an "inverse telecine" process in encoding.

With Sonic's new Direct-24 feature, film cadence from Avid Symphony Universal can be automatically logged in real-time, eliminating the need for an inverse telecine analysis pass. Alternatively, film source video can be recorded from Avid Symphony Universal at 20% faster than real-time, again bypassing the inverse telecine analysis and increasing productivity.."