EMediaLive.com

One of the coolest new features in Adobe Encore CS4 is the ability to insert pop-up menus over video in Blu-ray Disc projects, a feature unique among authoring programs in Encore’s class. In this tutorial, I’ll describe how to implement that feature, as I did in a simple project I produced in early fall.

We’ll start in Premiere Pro CS4, if only to have a brief look at one of CS4’s most significant advances. As with Premiere Pro CS3, you can add Encore chapter markers to your timeline. I recommend you take this approach, simply because it’s easier in Premiere Pro, where you have visual clues such as titles and waveforms to guide your efforts.

Step 1: Send Your Sequence to Encore
When you’re ready to begin authoring, click Adobe Dynamic Link > Send to Encore (Figure 1, below). This will send your Premiere Pro sequence, with all the chapter markers you added, directly to Encore without requiring you to render.

Step 2: Start Your Project in Encore
The next screen that you’ll see is Encore’s New Project screen (Figure 2, below). That’s right, there’s no rendering between Premiere Pro and Encore.

If you notice any changes you need to make in your Premiere Pro timeline while authoring in Encore, choose Edit > Edit Original and you’re back in Premiere Pro, where any saved changes are immediately fed back into Encore. If you’re a DVD producer, or you use Encore to produce your Flash presentations, this feature alone is worth the upgrade price.

You’ll need a Blu-ray project to use the pop-up menus, so choose Blu-ray and your intended Television Standard, Codec, Dimensions, and Frame Rate. Since I shot in HDV for distribution in the U.S., I’ll use the parameters shown in Figure 2, above.

Step 3: Create and Link Your Menu
Create and link your main navigational menu as normal. This is a quick DVD I’m making from video shot at a summer ballet training course my eldest child took at Wake Forest’s beautiful campus, so it’s a quick-and-dirty, template-based menu (Figure 3, below).

Step 4: Create a Submenu
Now let’s create the pop-up menu that will appear over the video while it’s playing, allowing your viewers to navigate directly to another location without first stopping the video and returning to a traditional menu.

You can create a submenu multiple ways. In the beginning, it’s easiest if you simply choose File > New > Pop-up menu (Figure 4, below). Encore will create a new pop-up menu using the currently selected template in the library window. If you examine the new menu, you’ll notice that it looks just like a regular menu except that every layer that’s not a button layer is transparent. In essence, that’s what a pop-up menu is.

Step 5: Or ... Copy and Rename the Original Menu
The other alternative that I used in my production was to simply copy the main menu that I had already created and rename it "Pop-up" to distinguish it from the original. Then, click the pop-up menu to select it, click its Properties tab, then click the Pop-up subtab and, finally, the Set as Blu-ray Pop-up Menu checkbox (Figure 5, below).

This tells Encore that it’s a pop-up menu, and Encore accordingly makes all layers except the button layers transparent. I shifted the vertical text buttons to horizontal as you’ll see in Figure 7, but Encore preserved all the links and, of course, the text itself, saving me some work.

Once you create your pop-up menu, you link it to your content as normal (if necessary) and pretty much treat it like any other Encore menu.

Step 6: Choose Associations
Next you have to tell Encore which timelines you want the pop-up menu to appear over. Note that the same pop-up menu can appear over multiple timelines.

Click the timeline to select it. Then, in the timeline’s Properties window, choose the target pop-up menu, in this case named Pop-up, in the Set Popup Menu list box, as shown in Figure 6 (below).

Step 7: Choose a Background Timeline and a BF Frame
Note that Encore’s traditional preview function won’t display the pop-up menu; the only way to view the menu above the timeline from within Encore is to return to the pop-up menu’s Properties tab, click the Pop-up tab, then choose a Background timeline and BG Frame in the appropriate fields, as shown in Figure 7 (below). Then Encore will display the pop-up menu over that frame so you can see what it will look like when you actually burn the project to disc.

Note that you’re not associating the pop-up menu with the timeline in this step; you’re simply picking a frame to preview the pop-up menu over. To be clear, to actually make the pop-up menu appear over that timeline, you have to set the timeline’s pop-up menu as described in Step 5.

Step 8: Burn Your Blu-ray Disc
Then you burn your Blu-ray as normal. I used Pioneer’s BD-RW BRD-202 in my tests, which proved instantly compatible with CS4, which was nice, because some earlier Pioneer drives had problems with CS3. I produced using Verbatim BD-RE media, which I recommend (both Verbatim and using rewritable media) because it will probably take a few tries to get the pop-up menus right.

Playing back the project on my Samsung BD-P1000, the pop-up menus appeared on cue and performed perfectly, taking me to the target videos just like regular menus. However, my first pop-up titles were too thin and flickered onscreen, which looked awful. I then increased the font size and added shadows and outlines in Photoshop, which made the text presentable. I recommend that you budget some time to experiment with different text settings before shipping the disc to your client.

In its press demos, Adobe presented a great looking pop-up menu with background shown in Figure 8 (above). With a bit of advanced Photoshop knowledge, you can create really impressive results.

Jan Ozer (jan at doceo.com) is a frequent contributor to industry magazines and websites on digital video-related topics and the author of Critical Skills for Streaming Producers, a mixed media tutorial on DVD published by StreamingMedia.com.

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The Authoritative Blu-ray Disc (BD) FAQ: Updates

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PEGASYS Set to Release TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4 -- The All-In-One Media Authoring Solution

p>Pegasys, Inc. (http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com), the company that makes digital video easy, announces the upcoming availability of its TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4 software. It's the perfect, all-in-one media authoring solution for any video enthusiast. It is easy enough for a beginner to understand, and sophisticated enough to meet the demands of an experienced videographer. The U.S. release date is scheduled for November 13th, 2008. As a special promotion, users that purchase TMPGEnc DVD Author 3 between now and November 13th can purchase TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4 for only $10.00.

All-New Features

Import Hi-Def Video (AVCHD/HDV)
With the capability to author the high-capacity Blu-ray format, users can enjoy high definition videos with menus without worrying about disc capacity. This allows the saving of high-definition videos taken with an AVCHD or HDV camcorder and keeping it in high definition. Add in support for high quality 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound or linear PCM audio (up to 192kHz/20bit) and the result is a superb audio/video presentation.
Fast Proxy Editing
Because of the added video information in HD video files, editing them can be labor intensive and time consuming. HD video files – such as those imported from HDV and AVCHD camcorders – can slow computers trying to process all of the information. TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4 creates a smaller, easier to manage proxy file, from which editing can be done as with any other video clip. When the video is output, the edits made in the proxy file are transferred to the original video file.
Dolby Digital 5.1 Channel Support
For awesome surround sound experience, this TMPGEnc enhanced software supports the input and output of 5.1 Dolby Digital audio. Now every nuance, explosion, and bass-thumping sound can be saved, savored, and enjoyed for as long as desired.
Advanced Slideshow Creator
For photo lovers, TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4 features an advanced slideshow creator that allows users to create slideshow DVDs or hi-def slideshows (1920 x 1080) on Blu-ray Disc. Users can animate each slide with transitions and animation effects to bring still images to life.

Other all-new features include:171 video transition effects that add a professional look and feel to video clips; batch authoring that automatically renders multiple DVD/BDMV projects one after the other, eliminating the need for the user to start each output manually; the ability to author Blu-ray discs with full HD pop-up menus; and the ability to create menu parts such as buttons, frames, and backgrounds from custom images.

Plus These Standard Features
These enhancements join the following list of rich features that have made TMPGEnc authoring software the best in its class.

Authoring Works 4 easily captures video directly from a DV or HDV camcorder. All it takes is a simple IEEE 1394 (i.Link) interface connection to a PC. It can also import many types of source files, including: DVD-VIDEO, DVD-VR, MPEG1/2, MPEG-4 ISO/H.264, AVI, Windows Media, DivX, and QuickTime (mov, mp4, 3gp, 3g2) file formats. It can utilize up to two subtitle streams simultaneously, making it possible to create a DVD or Blu-ray Disc with subtitles appearing in more than one language.

Users can utilize either built-in menu templates or, by using the robust menu creation process, can create quick and easy custom menus. Users can also freely position and resize titles, thumbnail images, and text, creating dynamic motion menus that give life to any production. Special Smart Rendering technology makes encoding faster, allowing the editing and outputting of DivX and DVD projects much quicker than other authoring software.

DivX authoring capability allows DivX projects to feature DVD-like menus and navigation. Finished projects may be played with DivX Player software on a PC, or on any DivX Ultra Certified DVD player and a television or compatible home theater system.

Availability
TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4 will be available for purchase and download here from November 13th at a price of $99.95.

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Find The Necessary CD Fast With Camel Disc Catalog 2.2.0

TechnoDreamer Software is ready to announce the release of Camel Disc Catalog 2.2.0 - a new version of a popular utility for keeping the collections of CDs and DVDs carefully organized and easily found in a snap.

Camel Disc Catalog is a neat CD organizer that generates a computer database for keeping track and searching for required disk in jig time. All what is required from the user is inserting the disk into the CD-ROM drive and scanning it. Camel Disc Catalog will automatically index the structure of files and folders, record file names and create a disk snapshot. Once the disk is scanned, it is added to the database and assign to a particular category - "Video", "Music", or "Software". Additional comments like the CD's location in the house or the name of the person to whom the CD was loaned to can be as well added.

"I have more than 300 DVDs and it takes only seconds to find necessary disk in the base. An exceptional program", says Lars Knudsen, one of the software users. The familiar and easy-to-use Windows Explorer-style interface makes it extremely east, for even a total beginner, to start using Camel Disc Catalog, the more so, that it is divided into two areas - an explorer with a tree view of the database and a content viewer. Once started, the program provides an at-a-glance overview of the user's entire disk collection. The interface is divided into two areas - an explorer with a tree view of the database and a content viewer.

Camel Disc Catalog inventories a new CD in two steps. By just inserting and scanning it is more than easy to add a new disk into the database.

The software also allows adding any additional information from the internet to the CD's snapshot. The user just needs to right-click the snapshot, select the "Import form Web" and Camel Disc Catalog will automatically connect to the database and search for a match.

By means of the search box feature it is possible to find the disk in the catalogue at a blink of an eye.

Camel Disc Catalog will let the user never loose his CD with the help of "Loans" feature - an option that displays the loaner's name with optional comments, so that the user will be always aware to whom he or she had loaned the CD.

With the built-in back up feature Camel Disc Catalog will keep the database well-handled in case of its loss due to hardware failure or a virus attack. By just few clicks the user can restore the back up copy and the database will be up instantly. What is more, the program can compress the database to make it smaller in order to reduce the program's space on the hard disk.

Camel Disc Catalog provides the functional core extension through plug-ins for scanning files, importing information from online websites and capturing frames from video.

Other features include the following:

Disk cataloguing language selection due to full Unicode support;
Personal remark addition for all elements (HTML format is supported);
Database distribution as a single file;
Various set of nice skins;
Assignment of nicknames for files and folders;
Video snapshot capture;
Images setting for any elements (including video files screenshot import and graphic files preview);
Cover art, movie or games Import descriptions from online resources like IMDB.com;
Compiling of reports in different formats (Excel, PDF, HTML and more).

Pricing and availability
Camel Disc Catalog 2.2.0 is compatible with Microsoft Windows 2000, XP and Vista with 64 Mb RAM. The software is available in English and Russian languages.

Camel Disc Catalog is a shareware program and it can be tested for trial period of 30 days since the day of installation. For Camel Disc Catalog permanent usage after the trial period license registration is required. The registration fee is set to $35.95 USD (excluding VAT, if applicable) for 1-4 licenses, 32.35 USD for 5-9 licenses (10% discount), 28.75 USD for 10 and more licenses (20% discount). The software is payable in US dollars, or other accepted currency. More information about paying options is available here.

www.cameldisc.com

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Sony DADC Continues Major Investment in London-Based Blu-ray Disc Authoring Facility

Sony DADC has announced the completion of its latest investment round in Blu-ray Disc authoring and mastering facilities at its London office. A global player in the media creation industry with creative facilities on every continent, Sony DADC has now created Europe’s best resourced and most advanced Blu-ray Disc authoring and mastering cluster comprising of the London facility working closely with its Salzburg Blu-ray Disc authoring centre.

Alongside the format’s stunning High Definition video and audio capabilities, Sony DADC continues to invest in the evolution of its BD-Live authoring resources. This sophisticated interactivity palette blends Blu-ray seamlessly with internet connectivity and transforms the home entertainment experience from passive viewing to totally immersive interactivity. It enables movie fans to access a rich diversity of added value content and communicate with the movie’s makers, the studio and other committed fans through specially developed web-based portals.

"With its unprecedented picture and sound quality together with the rapidly developing BD-Live, Blu-ray is revolutionising the European home entertainment industry," commented Neil Bottrill, Head of DigitalWorks Authoring & Post-Production at Sony DADC’s London Office. "Already, Blu-ray accounts for more of our revenue than DVD projects. In just 12 months, we have seen our Blu-ray authoring business grow by more than ten times in both volume and value."

Delivering a fast-track Blu-ray Disc production facility for its clients, Sony DADC has invested heavily in HD production equipment, which covers the entire creative process from HDCAM-SR format High Definition tape decks to specialist encoding systems and authoring software. As a result of this investment, Sony DADC has all the necessary BD production facilities in-house and can turn around projects faster than any other facility operating in Europe.

"Thanks to all the facilities mentioned, Sony DADC can offer a seamless One-Stop-Shop service for Blu-ray customers: from content creation over authoring, mastering, production through to direct-to-retail shipments. So our clients just need to focus on sales and marketing and do not have to worry about handing the title over from one supplier to the other" Bottrill added.

Sony DADC’s rapidly growing Blu-ray client list includes 2Entertain, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Icon, Entertainment Film, ITV DVD, Optimum, Showbox Media Group Limited, Metrodome, Artificial Eye, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Music and Eagle Vision.

BD-Live development focus
2008 was the year when Blu-ray moved significantly into the interactive space through the implementation of its unique BD-Live system, and when BD-Live capacities were simultaneously rolled out at Sony DADC facilities in US, Europe and China. With a wide range of consumer electronics manufacturers – such as Sony, Panasonic, Sharp and Pioneer – launching BD-Live players this autumn, the movie studios are looking at this facility with interest.

"Today it is the format’s exceptional picture and sound quality that turn consumers on to Blu-ray but in the future we will see BD-Live becoming an increasingly important element in the entertainment proposition," explains Neil Bottrill. "Already, we can offer the European market’s most advanced BD-Live production facility. In the future, our plan is to stay ahead of the market by bringing more of these facilities, resources and people in-house within the London team."

About Sony DADC
Sony DADC is a leading disc and digital solution provider for the entertainment, education and information industries, offering world-class optical media replication services, digital and physical supply chain solutions and software services. The world’s largest optical media production network consists of twenty-seven optical media production, distribution and digital facilities worldwide. European distribution facilities are located in Frankfurt, Paris, Madrid, Gothenburg and Enfield, UK. Manufacturing sites are located in Salzburg and Southwater, UK.

www.sonydadc.com

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Silicon Mountain Unveils Allio 42-inch HDTV with Integrated PC and Blu-Ray Player

Silicon Mountain Holdings, Inc., (OTCBB: SLCM), a technology company specializing in high-performance interactive computing solutions, today announced its design for a 32 and 42-inch High Definition LCD-TV with an integrated, full-function PC and Blu-Ray/DVD player. Named Allio, this system will define an entirely new category of converged products, where entertainment and instant, on-demand information and productivity blend together seamlessly, in stunning high-definition.

The Allio HD TV / PC is the first product of its kind in North America, and Silicon Mountain is the first company worldwide to develop a converged HDTV / PC solution that includes Blu-Ray. It is available now, in time for U.S. holiday purchases. Orders are being taken now at the Visionman website (www.visionman.com. Additional information on where to buy Allio will be announced soon.

The flagship Allio model marries a Full-HD 42" LCD display with a combo Blu-Ray/DVD player, integrated digital recorder for PVR and a powerful PC, based on the Intel Core2Duo E8400 processor, 4GB of RAM from Silicon Mountain, a 1TB hard drive and the 64-bit version of Windows Vista Home Premium. In addition to the analog and digital audio-video inputs common to high-def televisions, Allio includes wireless and wired networking capabilities and several USB ports to extend the experience to other computers and peripherals in the home.

Internet Video Comes to the Big Screen
Integrating the television with the Internet brings a new source of content to the digital lifestyle – Internet video. Normally confined to smaller computer monitors, streaming high definition content from providers like Joost, Hulu and TidalTV now can be accessed on the TV, in addition to popular clip sites such as YouTube. Allio’s channel choices span cable, satellite and Internet for a truly converged, hybrid entertainment experience. Media libraries can be combined, shared and played from a single device. The Allio HD TV / PC enables users to store their iTunes and DVD collections on a single system.

"The Allio HD TV / PC takes the digital experience into another dimension," said Tré Cates, Silicon Mountain President and CEO. "During product development, we discovered that our testers regularly expressed disappointment in their own large screen television and home theatre configurations after using Allio for just a few hours. The results are clear. The Allio HD TV / PC experience simply suits our modern digital lifestyle better. The converged experience will boost productivity and interactive behaviors, and bring families together around the next generation of appliance, just as the early television and radio did for generations past."

Picture-in-picture and split-screen capabilities allow multiple sources of content to operate together on a single large screen. A Blu-Ray or DVD can be watched in one window, while television is viewed in another pane, with computing tasks occurring simultaneously. The uses of this split-screen capability are seemingly endless. On Sunday, a fantasy football player can watch multiple games simultaneously, while browsing NFL.com for real-time player stats and scores, while chatting on AOL Instant Messenger or Skype with other league owners. A student can watch educational programming from a satellite or cable provider while writing a paper and looking up unfamiliar terms and concepts on Wikipedia, then taking a quick break to update his or her MySpace page. A business executive can view streaming stock quotes while composing email and watching financial news.

Systems start at $1,599.99
Six configurations of The Allio HD TV / PC are available, with features and pricing to fit any budget. The entry-level 32" and 42" Allio with an Intel 2.5 GHz PDC E5200, 250GB of storage, 2GB of RAM, DVD/CD support and Vista Home Premium retails for $1,599 and $1,999. The middle system in the series adds PVR and Blu-Ray support and an upgraded 2.54 GHz Core2Duo E7200 processor for $2,199 and $2,399. The flagship Allio system ups the ante on the intermediate option, upgrading the RAM and storage to 4GB and 1TB, respectively, for $2,399 and $2,799.

For the budget-minded, Silicon Mountain plans to launch configurations based on the popular Ubuntu Linux operating system for an even lower-cost solution. Every Allio HD TV / PC model will be assembled in Northern California.

www.slcmholdings.com.

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Xlnt Idea, Inc Announces New Nexis 100 Plus DVD/CD Desktop Publishing System

XLNT Idea Inc., a leading US Based Manufacturer of automated robotic desktop DVD and CD Printing and Publishing Systems, has unveiled its new Nexis 100 Plus DVD / CD Desktop Publishing System. Featuring dramatic enhancements over its current Nexis 100DVD System, XLNT Idea’s Nexis 100 Plus is the first single drive Six Color Disc Printing solution available today. Nexis 100 Plus provides users with the fastest print speeds for hi resolution images, lowest cost of ownership, and superior hardware and software performance and capabilities. Nexis 100 Plus has an MSRP of $1795.00, and will be available from an XLNT Idea authorized VAR, Dealer or OEM partner.

Chuck Alcon Jr, XLNT Idea’s Director of Sales and Marketing commented, " Nexis 100 Plus is a giant leap for XLNT Idea in the development of our line of DVD / CD Publishing solutions. It clearly provides the best price / performance value for users in the DVD / CD disc creation industry. True Ink Jet Six Color Printing, improved modular design, and our enhanced DiscWorks software result in the best low cost DVD / CD publishing system available today. "

Dale K, VP of Engineering added, " We have created a solid IP portfolio of engineering design and development during our tenure, all of which has been utilized in the creation of Nexis 100 Plus. Our Engineers have remain focused on creating next generation products with superior hardware and software attributes, at very competitive price points. Nexis 100 Plus represents yet another advance in the development of our entire product line, of which there is more to come. "

www.xlntidea.com

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Onkyo Professional DV-BD606P Blu-ray Player

Onkyo Professional has introduced its first Blu-ray disc player, the DV-BD606P, which delivers the ultimate in high definition performance, including 1080p Deep Color capable video and bitstream output of the latest high-resolution audio codecs.

The DV-BD606P delivers full 1080p video at 24 frames per second, the native frame rate for most original motion pictures and HD content. This ensures that the user will be able to experience the playback of films recorded to Blu-ray with the smoothest, most stable reproduction possible. It features an HDMI v. 1.3a output, and is fully compatible with the Deep Color™ standard for over 1 billion possible colors. The HDMI connection also delivers bitstream output of both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio™ codecs for decoding in compatible processor or receiver, such as the recently introduced Onkyo Professional PR-SC886P preamplifier/processor.

The DV-BD606P includes a front-panel SD card slot, necessary to take advantage of the Bonus View™ picture-in-picture capability, giving consumers access to the interactive content available on many Blu-ray discs. It is compatible with legacy DVDs as well as Blu_ray discs, including internal video upscaling to 1080p. It is also capable of playing CD, Video CD, CD-R/RW, DVD±R/RW, DivX, WMA, JPG and even MP3 encoded discs.

The DV-BD606P includes a 19-inch rack mounting kit, and it is now available from Onkyo Professional dealers at a suggested retail price of $599.

Onkyo Professional is a division of Onkyo USA devoted to providing high quality audio/video components designed for use in commercial and professional venues such as broadcast facilities, schools, stores, hotels, churches, etc. and semi-pro applications such as DJ usage.

For more information about this and other fine Onkyo Professional products, visit www.onkyopro.com.

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NAD Introduces State-of-the-Art Blu-ray Disc Player with BD Live for Internet Connectivity

NAD Electronics, the highly regarded manufacturer of high-performance audio/video components, introduces the T 587 Blu-ray Disc Player, a premium player brimming with the latest features and offering for the first time a true High Definition source for digital Home Theater systems.

The T 587 is an advanced, state-of-the art Profile 2.0 player that features BD Live™ and BD Java for a new level of interactivity with home entertainment media. BD Live enables Internet-connected users to access additional content, such as movie previews, alternate movie endings, and special features for Blu-ray viewers, from the studio that produced the movie being screened. BD Java is the interactive platform supporting advanced content for Blu-ray Discs.

Of course, the T 587 does far more than play and interact with Blu-ray Discs. Its video and audio performance are both outstanding, and its versatility is suggested by its ability to play Blu-ray discs in BD-ROM, BD-R and BD-RE formats, conventional DVDs in NTSC and PAL, and several other popular disc formats, including DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-R/RW, and Audio CDs. The T 587 also loads discs very quickly, unlike many other Blu-ray players that take more than a minute to do so. Anyone who has ever pressed Play only to stare at a dark screen as the seconds ticked away will appreciate this feature. The T 587, like other Blu-ray players, employs a violet laser whose light wavelength is shorter than the red lasers DVD and CD players use. This lets the laser read a smaller spot that’s more densely packed with the pits that generate the digital ones and zeros representing the picture and sound the player decodes. A Blu-ray Disc can have over five times the data capacity of a DVD, and can only be transmitted from the player to a TV display by the encrypted HDMI interface. High Definition playback requires the entire signal path be capable of a digital bandwidth of 150 Megahertz, which means employing the latest TVs and A/V Receivers, Category 2 HDMI cables, and a system that supports 1080p resolution.

Video Performance
With Blu-ray’s native resolution of 1080p and pure digital transmission via HDMI, the T 587 delivers stunning picture quality, especially on screen sizes 50 inches and larger. Even standard definition DVDs benefit from NAD’s upscaling engine. The T 587 supports 1080p at 24 frames per second for the most fluid motion available from film-based material, avoiding motion artifacts from the "3:2 Pull Down" effect common on conventional DVD players.

For enhanced image quality, the T 587 also supports Deep Color and xvYCC Extended Color Space to provide an exceptionally wide color gamut and further extend the color range. Operating controls include fast forward and reverse, slow and step forward, search, repeat and random play, picture-in-picture, and a parental lock.

Audio Performance
The T 587 delivers studio master quality audio in a home entertainment format. Most Blu-ray Discs offer a true high-definition audio, 7.1 Linear PCM soundtrack with 24-bit resolution. The T 587 supports this format via HDMI. The T 587 also supports the new HD formats from Dolby and DTS that offer ‘lossless’ compression. They can be decoded in the T 587 and sent as LPCM via HDMI, or forwarded compressed to another component that supports decoding.

The T 587 also supports Audio CDs and CD-Rs with MP3 or WMA decoding, Dolby Digital Plus, and the legacy formats of Dolby Digital and DTS, which it transmits as bitstreams via HDMI, coax or optical connections. Dolby Digital Plus is a new backward-compatible Dolby format that significantly increases the bit rate for improved fidelity, and support up to 10.2 channels. Specially developed silicon rubber feet isolate vibrations from the player and the environment for the best possible performance.

The T 587’s ability to decode the newest lossless audio codecs from Dolby and DTS also serves as a cost-effective upgrade to the thousands of consumers who already own NAD T 175, T 785 and T 775 AV Receivers by providing a complete HD audio and video solution. When combined with the current generation of 1080p displays, the T 587 makes a state-of-the-art Home Theater more accessible and practical than ever before.

The T 587’s connection package is fully equipped for today’s video and audio needs. It includes HDMI 1.3, Ethernet, composite, component, coaxial, left and right audio, and optical outputs on the rear panel. An external IR Input allows easy integration with advanced control and automation systems, and a front-panel USB port lets owners play music and picture files stored on a memory stick or portable MP3 Player.

The T 587 Blu-ray Disc player will be available from authorized NAD dealers in December 2008 for a suggested price of $1,499.

www.nadelectronics.com

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New ISO Standard Gives Recommendations for Care of Optical Discs

A new International Standard establishes general principles and gives recommendations for the care and handling of digital optical discs during use with a view to maximizing their effective life.

Hand holding an optical disk ISO 18938:2008, Imaging materials – Optical discs – Care and handling for extended storage, applies to the families of compact disc (CD), digital versatile disc (DVD), high definition digital versatile disc (HD DVD), Blu-ray disc (BD), and any hybrids of these families, as well as each type of disc within a family, e.g. injection moulded [read-only memory (ROM)], dye-layer [recordable (R)] and phase change [rewriteable (RW), random access memory (RAM)] technologies.

Optical discs are widely used for the recording and storage of information. Their popularity has led to wide availability and made them the medium of choice for numerous applications. The advantages are many: information is recorded in digital format that not only provides high storage density, but also allows duplication without information loss, offers ease of data manipulation and facilitates transmission.

The medium is of tremendous benefit for audio usage since it permits uninterrupted playback for long periods of time. Further, information in a disc format can be accessed very quickly.

However, as with other media there are concerns about the life expectancy of recorded information on optical discs which, like paper records, photographic film and magnetic tape, can be subject to both damage and decay.

Mr. Ted Sheldon, Committee member of ISO/TC 42, Photography, which developed the new standard, makes the point: "In addition to storage conditions, the proper care and handling of optical discs is vital to prolonged disc life. Faulty handling, packing and transporting techniques and methods can cause physical damage to the discs and their recorded content. Extending the longevity of optical discs requires appropriate handling methods. Following these recommendations promotes their physical integrity and increases their effective life."

ISO 18938:2008 addresses the issues of physical integrity of the medium necessary to preserve access to the recorded data. These include the following:

use and handling environments, including pollutants, temperature and humidity and light exposure
contamination concerns
inspection
cleaning and maintenance, including cleaning methods and frequency
transportation
disasters, including water, fire, construction and post-disaster procedures
staff training

Although some of the recommendations in ISO 18938:2008, such as staff training programmes, apply specifically to large-scale usage, the basics of all recommendations are intended for any circumstances where the desired result is long-term use of the medium, whether archival, commercial or personal.

The effective life of optical disks can also be increased or decreased significantly depending upon the conditions under which they are stored. Storage recommendations are given in ISO 18925:2008, Imaging materials – Optical disc media – Storage practices.

ISO 18938:2008, Imaging materials – Optical discs – Care and handling for extended storage, was prepared by ISO/TC 42, Photography. It costs 108 Swiss francs and is available from ISO national member institutes (see the complete list with contact details) and from ISO Central Secretariat through the ISO Store.

www.iso.org

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