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New Avid Services Enable Third Parties to Easily Exchange Avid-Native Media (11/9/2008)

Customers benefit from more efficient enterprise workflows; Coverage of Summer Games empowered by ability to exchange Avid media in third party environments

Avid Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: AVID) today announced the availability of Avid(r) Media Toolkit and Avid Interplay(r) Web Services: a pair of developer packages that significantly increase the openness of Avid solutions to easily interface with third party applications. Avid Media Toolkit is designed to improve the way developers create, read and exchange Avid MXF media files with other industry applications. Avid Interplay Web Services API is a high-level SOA interface that enables customers and integrators to seamlessly incorporate Interplay into customised automated workflows. It supports interaction with standard Web applications such as Java and .Net environments and will reduce tedious integration efforts, making the Avid suite of media-based products a much easier fit into already established IT environments. One of the first installments of the Web Services API was used in the production of the 2008 Summer Games.

"The content creation industry is growing at a rapid pace and increasingly our customers are asking us to create ways to leverage their existing IT investments and make them a part of their production environment," said Sam Bogoch, director, Infrastructure Solutions for Avid. "Today's announcement is just one of many strides we've made in recent months to make Avid solutions more enterprise-friendly. This announcement builds upon the release of our BXF Gateway system - which will significantly improve and streamline broadcast workflows - and the announcement that our Avid DNxHD(r) codec had become an industry standard for HD media exchange. We will continue to look at ways to open up our solutions to ultimately benefit our customers and their workflows."

Avid Media Toolkit
Avid Media Toolkit is a software development kit that will simplify the task of creating and accessing Avid-native media for third parties. For instance, developers will now have several options in addition to Avid Interplay Transfer for material ingest as a part of file-based workflows, which will greatly simplify the process of working with file-based media. Avid Media Toolkit automatically converts files to Avid-native media files, making it easier for customers to access media from a variety of sources and applications. Customers will also be able easily move media from various Avid systems into other production environments such as graphics, audio or playout devices. Key features of the new Avid Media Toolkit include:
* The ability to read and write Avid-native MXF files together with associated AAF metadata; and
* Improved media exchange with Interplay environments

Formats supported in Avid Media Toolkit Version 1.0 include: IMX 30, IMX 40, IMX 50, DVCAM, DVCPro 25, DVCPro 50, DVCPro 100 and Avid DNxHD 120, 145, 185 and 220.

Avid Interplay Web Services
Avid Interplay Web services allows third party vendors to better manage assets in an Avid Interplay environment and helps to extend Interplay functionality outside the bounds of its built-in toolset. Avid has opened up the interface for third parties to seamlessly integrate Interplay features into their customised automated workflows, via XML. This functionality was previously only available using the Interplay Access application. Additional new functionality includes:
* Folder navigation and listing
* Folder management
* Asset check-in and retrieval
* Metadata input and retrieval
* Searching
* Locator Management
* Sub-clip creation
* Headframe management

MOG Solutions, a developer of MXF technology, recently licensed Avid's Web Services API to complete the development of its TOBOGGAN product. TOBOGGAN is designed to enable customers to ingest multiple resolutions of material, check-in metadata to the Avid Interplay system and turn third party EDLs into full-blown Avid sequences.

"The Avid Interplay Web services API has alleviated extremely complex development and allowed us to develop more seamless file-based workflows for our customers, especially those that work in time-critical environments," said Ernesto Santos, marketing and sales manager of MOG Solutions. "It will have an immediate impact on Avid's customer base, especially those interested in seamlessly bringing metadata directly into the Avid systems from tapeless camera sources like XDCAM and P2. One of the first applications of the integration was used quite extensively by a major broadcaster during the 2008 Summer Games."

Avid Interplay Web services are based on SOAP 1.1 and are compatible with the most commonly used Web services frameworks such as Net 2.0 and Sun Metro for Java (JAX WS). Developers interested in obtaining a licensing agreement for Avid Web Services may do so online.

www.avid.com  

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