Award-Winning DVD Authoring Software Allows Creative Professionals and Enthusiasts to Produce Interactive and Engaging Hollywood-Quality DVDs.

Sonic Solutions launched DVDit Pro 6, the latest version of its pioneering DVD authoring solution, designed for creative professionals and enthusiasts alike. Representing the most significant upgrade to date, DVDit Pro 6 is packed with innovative new features, precision tools and fine-tune controls, presented in a completely customizable workspace that is optimized for productivity. The latest version enables authors to deliver engaging Hollywood-quality DVDs with advanced navigation systems, stunning menu designs, sophisticated behaviors, and with the inclusion of eDVD 4, rich web-linked interactivity.

In addition to offering advanced-level authoring control at a mid-level price point, DVDit Pro 6 now includes Sonic’s award-winning eDVD 4 software. Designed to work with any authored DVD title, eDVD 4 allows content producers to add links from DVD menu buttons or chapter points to a wide assortment of content that is accessible during computer playback. eDVD-enabled DVDs let viewers launch Web pages, play HD video files, view high-resolution images, open documents such as PDF, Excel, Word, and PowerPoint presentations, or launch executable files such as games or applications during PC-DVD playback. eDVD turns DVD into a far more expressive platform for content producers by allowing them to give their audience a greatly enhanced and unique DVD experience.

“Sonic's DVDit Pro 6 has wedded powerful, easy-to-use DVD creation tools with web-connectivity, enabling both enthusiasts and professionals to produce great looking DVDs with interactive links to enhanced web-based imagery and assets," said Richard Doherty, director of the Envisioneering Group. "We expect these powerful new DVDit Pro 6 capabilities will pay for themselves many times over for event videographers and DVD professionals, resulting in repeat business and happier customers."

DVDit Pro 6 is currently being showcased at the Wedding & Event Video Association (WEVA) Expo 2005 (booth #225), being held in Las Vegas, Nevada, August 8th to the 11th. WEVA, with its key audience of professional wedding and event videographers, represents the ideal launch pad for DVDit Pro 6. Over the course of the exposition, attendees will be able to gain a first-hand understanding of how DVDit Pro 6 can help them deliver the best interactive DVD title to their customers.

“Professional videographers, independent film makers, and individuals creating video for government, corporate, and education have long been waiting for the tools and technology to easily create enhanced DVD titles that combine the convenience and portability of the DVD format with the power and on-line capabilities of the PC,” said Rolf Hartley, senior vice president and general manager for Sonic’s Professional Products Group. “DVDit Pro 6 is exactly the solution that this market needs: powerful Hollywood-level authoring combined with intuitive project workflow and the added ability with eDVD to expand their projects beyond the DVD specification to take advantage of the power of the PC. DVDit Pro 6 also represents a compelling upgrade for consumers looking for more control over their DVD projects.”

DVDit Pro 6 Feature Highlights:
New Professional User Interface – Features a flexible workspace that is completely customizable to the creative needs of the individual. Users can employ one of a number of predefined workspace layouts designed for focusing on a specific authoring task, create and save their own layout, or spread out their work area using dual-monitor configurations.
Comprehensive File Support – Users can import movies and pictures in virtually any format, from AVI to MPEG, from QuickTime to Windows Media Video. DVDit Pro also ensures top-quality video and audio reproduction with support for superior real-time MPEG-2 encoding with VBR control and multi-channel Dolby Digital theatre-quality sound.
Multiple Audio and Subtitle Track Support – Now users can create as many as eight additional audio tracks and 32 subtitle tracks per movie using DVDit Pro’s integrated movie timeline. The timeline enables professionals to easily produce compliant multi-region DVD titles and enthusiasts to add commentary tracks or captions.
Menu Customization Control – Visually captivating DVDs can be achieved quickly with DVDit Pro’s inclusion of professionally designed menu templates. Users are also free to customize the visual design of menus by importing layered Photoshop files, or by combining personal photos or video files with individual graphic elements such as buttons, frames and masks.
Control DVD Behaviors – DVDs with Hollywood-style navigation are easily created through a rich array of technical controls such as the setting of “first play,” title playback sequence and “end actions,” or by programming sophisticated playback options that are enacted via buttons on the viewer’s remote control. DVDit Pro provides extremely versatile and easy to use “routing controls” which set different “next actions” based on particular navigation sequences.
New Slideshow Creation Controls – Users can create multimedia presentations with the rich slideshow capabilities included in DVDit Pro 6. Users are able to quickly import any popular image file format and build slideshows with dramatic transitions and as many as 999 pictures. Users can also automatically synchronize their slideshow duration to the length of an accompanying multi-song audio track.
Sophisticated Playlist Control – Playlists allow users to create specialized content playback experiences without duplicating content on the disc. Users can generate a “play all” function or offer viewers unique categorized content playback while at the same time preserving disc space.
Flexible OpenDVD Support – Support for OpenDVD allows users the flexibility of opening and editing a completed disc at a later time, which makes it easy to make changes to discs without tracking down the original assets.
Professional Mastering – DVDit Pro 6 includes the controls and specialized functions professionals demand including DLT and Dual-layer disc support, disc protection schemes, and region coding.

Pricing and Availability
DVDit Pro 6 is available today at (http://www.sonic.com/go/dvdit) and will be available at select resellers and via catalogs later this month for a suggest retail price of $399. A standard version of DVDit is also available for a suggested retail price of $299. Special upgrade pricing is available for current registered owners of previous versions of DVDit and eDVD.