LAGUNA HILLS, Calif.,... February 23, 2000 – Ultera Systems today announced that six major vendors of DVD authoring, mastering and archival software tools now support Ultera’s DVD-R MultiMaster™ array controller, opening up Ultera’s innovative DVD-R solution to customers in all segments of the DVD market.

The companies announcing support for the Ultera DVD-R solution include: Daikin U.S Comtec Laboratories, the leading provider of DVD authoring software; Prassi Software USA, a top provider of innovative, practical, quality software solutions for professional CD and DVD recording; Smart Storage Inc., the leading provider of standards-based storage software for managing, accessing, and archiving information assets for Windows 95, Windows NT, NetWare, and UNIX environments; Astarte GmbH, a full-line supplier of DVD authoring and mastering tools; Gear Software Inc., the leader in production support software for optical disc recording; and HyCD Inc., the industry leader in cross-platform CD and DVD recording.

The DVD-R MultiMaster combines Ultera’s patented array controller technology and the latest generation of DVD-R drives from Pioneer New Media Technologies Inc. to provide a cost-effective solution for DVD mastering, replication and archiving applications. DVD-R MultiMaster supports up to 12 Pioneer DVD-R drives to be connected to a single host, enabling speeding short-run replication operations by creating 12 DVD discs in the time it typically takes to create a single disc.

Ultera’s DVD-R MultiMaster controller synchronizes the duplication process to multiple drives with no performance degradation. The host computer sees the controller as a single SCSI device, but up to 12 Pioneer DVD-R drives can be connected simultaneously, each operating at maximum data rates, allowing a dozen DVD copies to be created in the same time required to produce a single disc. The DVD-R Master controller is also compatible with existing autoloader and library software, enabling each drive array channel to control a media changer device, further extending the capabilities of the solution.

"The Pioneer-Ultera DVD-R solution provides a unique platform for a wide range of DVD publishing and archiving uses, but the potential of this hardware platform only becomes useful with broad application software support," said Fred Bedard, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Ultera. "With these critical software partnerships in place, the DVD-R MultiMaster is now the premier solution for DVD authoring, replication and archiving applications."

"DVD-R technology is emerging as the premier platform for testing and developing DVD applications, and Ultera and Pioneer have now delivered a solution that makes DVD-R even more attractive," said Tomoyoshi Ichioka, Senior Vice President of Operations, Daikin U.S. Comtec Laboratories. "It will definitely have a powerful effect on the industry and will be a very important product for further development of the corporate DVD market."

"The DVD-R MultiMaster and SmartStor™ DVD Maker solution fills a void, allowing multiple DVD copies to be created for distribution or archiving without having to go to a mastering plant," said Gary Brach, President of Smart Storage. "With DVD-R we’re re-living the evolution of CD recording, which started out as being very expensive, then migrated to multi-drive systems as costs came down. We’re at the stage with DVD-R where it makes sense for video, medical imaging and other data-intensive applications to look at this solution today."

The software products that now support Ultera’s DVD-R Master include:

Daikin Scenarist
Scenarist™ is the world's most popular, most advanced and most compatible DVD Authoring software. Using a high performance, cross-platform database engine, Scenarist provides increased performance and a seamless workflow environment. The first commercially available authoring tool on the market, Scenarist was developed in conjunction with some of the largest production houses in the world and refined into the most stable, productive authoring tool available today with well over 2,000 titles created on this system. With Scenarist, users can create title templates, reuse data from one title to the next, share data assets, and simultaneously access DVD projects. Scenarist supports a high energy, productive, integrated and creative authoring process, always in full compliance with the DVD specification. Scenarist has Flexible Navigation Editing, making simple operations for simple titles easy while advanced editing capabilities are a click away for complex titles. Copy and paste functions for navigation and menu information and a Template Wizard for series of projects, all make for the easiest and most powerful authoring solution to any DVD.

Prassi DVD Rep
DVD Rep™ is the first complete pre-mastering for DVD-R, with copy and record on the fly. DVD Rep is a Win 32 (Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT) professional software application for DVD-R mastering. DVD Rep is UDF compliant and masters on the fly, via disk image UDF/ISO Bridge or pure UDF file system formats. DVD Rep's interface has been designed using the latest advances in Windows shell integration techniques. Its ease of use belies the robust engine, which beats as the heart of this first-of-its-kind product.

Smart Storage SmartStor DVD Maker
SmartStor™ DVD Maker is designed for data-intensive applications such as document imaging, prepress, medical imaging and video archive using DVD-R media. SmartStor DVD Maker converts scanned images or video streams into a premastered image on the DVD Maker workstation. Then the software’s emulation system ensures the accuracy of the image before one or more DVD-R discs are produced, saving time and money caused by corrupt DVDs. Furthermore, SmartStor DVD Maker also serves video, multimedia and audio applications by providing a sophisticated data preparation and emulation tool to create and validate pre-mastered titles. Using DVD Maker, these images are tested and verified before being sent to the mastering plants for mass replication. The software also has an easy-to-use drag and drop graphical user interface, and supports ISO 9660, Joliet and UDF file systems.

Gear Software Gear Pro DVD
Designed for a wide range of professional applications – from producing a single disc at a user’s desktop to pre-mastering for mass replication of digital audio, video or game titles – GEAR Pro DVD™ v2.0 is the most comprehensive DVD software on the market. The software makes it easy for users to take advantage of the large storage capacities available with the DVD-R format. The product enables drag-and-drop functionality and offers unique features like cyclic buffering for writing performance and reliability. GEAR Pro DVD also includes backward capability with CD-R(W) drives, ANSI labeled output for DVD/DVD file format, Orange Book multi-session recording, Disc at Once and Track at Once recording methods.

Astarte DVDirector
The Astarte DVD product family includes DVDirector™ and DVDirector Pro™, the professional authoring suites for DVD-Video; DVDelight™, a simple tool for easy creation of linear DVD-Video titles; DVDExport™, a Macromedia Director Xtra which allows producers to author DVD-Video titles using Director; M.Pack, a software-based MPEG-2 encoder; and A.Pack, a Dolby Digital professional AC-3 encoding system.

HyCD Publisher
HyCD Publisher™, available for both UNIX and Windows environments, is the only DVD-R software on the market that allows for the creation of a single hybrid DVD-ROM readable on PC, Mac and UNIX platforms. HyCD Publisher is a true cross-platform DVD recording software. This powerful, feature rich, versatile recording software also allows the creation of bootable DVDs for PC, multimedia formats, file layout optimization and much more. HyCD Publisher is the only recording software needed to fulfill pre-mastering requirements. The intuitive graphical user interface allows both novice and advanced users to create DVDs.

About Ultera Systems
Ultera Systems, Inc. is the leading manufacturer of RAID Tape Array controllers and subsystems designed for high-speed backup, archive and high-speed data acquisition applications. All industry standard tape drives, tape libraries and storage management software are compatible with the Ultera Arrays. Its tape array product lines are marketed under the trade names "Striper," "Imager," "LibraryMaster" and "ShadowMaster," and sold through OEMs, VARs and Systems Integrators worldwide. Not new to the optical arena, Ultera has deployed its advanced controller technology in optical storage applications for years, in thousands of installations worldwide. Ultera is based in Laguna Hills, Calif.

For further information, call (949) 367-8800, email inform@ultera.com or visit Ultera's web site at http://www.ultera.com.