FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ASTARTE Ships DVD Authoring Tools

DVDirector and DVDirector Pro released after two years of
development and testing.

Friday, April 16, 1999 – ASTARTE GmbH today announced the immediate
availability of our flagship DVD authoring packages for the
Macintosh: DVDirector version 1.0.1 and DVDirector Pro version
1.0.1.

First previewed at the DVD Pro conference last summer, DVDirector is
the result of over two years of development work by ASTARTE’s
award-winning software team. ASTARTE made CD recording easy and
accessible with Toast CD-ROM Pro, now they’re doing it again for DVD
Video creation. DVDirector combines unprecedented ease-of-use with
sophisticated capabilities that let anyone create
professional-quality Video DVDs in record time.

Priced at USD 5,399, DVDirector offers breakthrough features at an
industry-leading price. Included in that price is the DVDirector
authoring application, plus M.Pack, our acclaimed MPEG-2 encoding
software, and our new Subtitle Editor application. Also included is
the Wired 4DVD playback card, which is used for DVD emulation and
playback during the authoring process.

In conjunction with the release, ASTARTE also announced a new lower
price for DVDirector Pro. Now priced at $9,899, DVDirector Pro sets
a new standard for value and performance. In addition to all the
features of the standard DVDirector, Pro includes a copy of our new
Dolby AC-3 encoding application, ASTARTE A.Pack, and the Wired
MediaPress, realtime MPEG encoding card with composite, S-Video and
component (Y/UV) input and transcoding functionality. (Please note
that all DVDirector Pro pre-orders placed at the old price will be
adjusted to the new lower price.)

DVDirector is designed for multimedia companies, video producers and
service bureaus who want to produce DVD Video discs but don’t have
the time or the budget for a high-end authoring system. It is
designed to fit seamlessly into the traditional work flow of a
multimedia or video production environment. Authors can use their
favorite tools for creating their source material (video, audio and
graphics), then use DVDirector to integrate them into a
professional-quality DVD Video disc.

DVDirector is content-driven, not technology driven. It doesn’t
confront the user with all the bits and bytes of the DVD Video
standard or force them to learn new ways to do things. DVDirector
works with source files from most MPEG and audio encoders, and uses
Photoshop layers to simplify the creation of graphical menus and
buttons.

A WindowsNT versions of DVDirector is in development for shipment
later this summer.

ASTARTE M.Pack and ASTARTE A.Pack are available separately for USD
399 and USD 799 respectively.

Whether you select DVDirector with its software MPEG encoder, or
DVDirector Pro with its bundled hardware encoder, you get powerful,
flexible DVD Video creation capacities for a fraction of the price of
any other solution.

ASTARTE will be showing their complete range of DVD production tools
at NAB in Las Vegas (Booth S9650).
DVDirector: For further information, look at:
http://shop.mac-shop.com/cgi-bin/MacShop.storefront/EN/product/DDM101E
0E

DVDirector Pro: For further information, look at:
http://shop.mac-shop.com/cgi-bin/MacShop.storefront/EN/product/DDPM101
E0E

ASTARTE GmbH Weberstrasse 1
D-76133 Karlsruhe Germany
phone: ++49-(0)721-985540 fax: ++49-(0)721-853862
mailto:info@astarte.de
Internet: http://www.astarte.de/dvd

Product Marketing Manager ASTARTE USA
phone: 651-653-6383 fax: 651-653-6495
mailto:mike.evangelist@astarte.de