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     This story was printed from CdrInfo.com,

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Formac Electronic Inc., a leading manufacturer of performance enhancing peripherals and advanced visualization solutions, today announced the second release of its DVD authoring software. Formac's new devideon(TM) x.2 software allows users to custom design the DVD menu, add chapters and use parallel encoding to accelerate the DVD creation process.

The software is shipped with Formac's next generation devideon(TM) superdrive, incorporating the latest Pioneer A-105 mechanism with a 4X DVD writing speed. Existing customers can download the software for free at Formac's website. Formac devideon(TM) x.2 is compatible with Apple's FireWire G3, G4, iMac, PowerBook, and iBook computers and works on OS9 and OSX platforms.

"Formac's software development team focused on two key objectives for the devideon(TM) x.2 software," said Oliver Bergmann, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and President of Formac Inc. "Increasing the feature set and accelerating the encoding speed. At a price of $399, including the latest Pioneer mechanism, professional DVD authoring is now more affordable than ever."

Formac's devideon(TM) x.2 software features a new intuitive interface, allowing users to create their own DVD menu in few easy steps. Text, pictures and movie chapters can be added by simple drag-and-drop. Size, color, position and other settings can be adjusted via an intuitive tool window. To increase the encoding speed, Formac's devideon(TM) x.2 takes advantage of a proprietary PARENC(TM) routine, encoding several movie chapters simultaneously to MPEG2, the format required for DVD creation. To further improve the encoding performance, the new software comes with a customized devideon(TM) screen-saver for OSX. Once activated, the screen-saver identifies and turns off redundant processes, focusing all available processing power on the encoding task. Unique to Formac's devideon(TM) software is also the ability to influence the encoding quality of video and audio, allowing the user to record up to 6 hours of video on one DVD media.

With the second devideon(TM) release, users can also take advantage of the lower-cost CD-R media. The devideon (TM) software features a new recording mode, which allows users to burn their movie projects as Super Video CD. DVDs, as well as Super Video CDs, burned with the devideon(TM) software can be played on most set-top DVD players as well as on computers with DVD drives.

Formac's devideon(TM) software works only in combination with Formac's devideon(TM) superdrive. A limited trial mode of the devideon(TM) x.2 software allows users to encode up to two chapters with 10 minutes of video (DVD mode).

The release of the new devideon(TM) software coincides with Formac's introduction of the next generation devideon(TM) superdrive. Incorporating the latest Pioneer's A-105 technology the FireWire DVD-R/RW & CD-R/RW combo drive records a 4.7 GB DVD-R disc at 4X (5.2 MB/sec), and DVD-RW media with 2X (2.6 MB/sec). Read performance for DVD-R, DVD video and DVD-ROM discs is provided at 6X (7.8 MB/sec). CD-Rs and CD-RWs are recorded at 4X, CD playback is at 24X.

Pricing and Availability

Formac's devideon(TM) x.2 is shipped immediately with the new devideon(TM) superdrive. The bundle is available through Formac Certified Resellers and online at www.formac.com for a suggested retail price of $399. Existing devideon(TM) owners can download the new software release for free on Formac's website.