`Planet of the Apes' Edited With Transoft's FibreNet; 20th Century Fox `Goes Ape' for the FibreNet Shared Storage and Networking Solution.

Business Editors

SANTA BARBARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 2, 2001

Transoft Networks, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Hewlett-Packard Company, announced that its FibreNet shared storage network solution was used to edit the major motion picture "Planet of the Apes."

FibreNet is the preferred Fibre Channel (FC) Storage Area Network (SAN) solution for digital media including production, post-production, film and television editing professionals. Recent summer box-office hits edited on Transoft's FibreNet shared storage network include "Dr. Dolittle 2," "Cats and Dogs," "Pearl Harbor" and "Planet of the Apes."

"Planet of the Apes" is based on the premise of the 1963 science-fiction novel written by Pierre Boulle, envisioned and directed by Tim Burton ("Batman," "Beetlejuice," "Edward Scissorhands," and "Sleepy Hollow"). The film's provocative story is about an upside down `ape-centric' world where intelligent, powerful and tyrannical Apes rule the humans, who are considered the inferior race. As the humans are hunted, enslaved and struggle to survive subsistent-living conditions, one man, who is unaffected by the oppression, challenges the social order and strives for revolutionary change.

The FibreNet shared storage network solution used to edit the "Planet of the Apes" includes three Avid Media Composers, three Transoft FibreNet seats, a 16-port Fabric Switch and 360 GB of Fibre Channel RAID storage. FibreNet provided superior networking and flexible storage management on the entire film and its visual effects in post-production.

The editorial team lead ACE editor, Chris Lebenzon (who edited many films including "Pearl Harbor," "Gone in 60 Seconds," "Armageddon" and "Batman Returns"), worked at various locations including Los Angeles, Hollywood, New York, and London.

"We've been able to store and share our entire film and VFX library. Also, our director (Burton) needed us to move to various locations, therefore we had to take the entire editing and storage systems with us," commented Joel Negron, associate film editor of "Planet of the Apes."

"He (Burton) was really impressed that we had the ability to move our complete editing room, location to location. He also loved the fact that he could go from one room to look at `Cuts,' another room to look at `visual FX,' then another to listen to `temp sound FX,' and with all the same media and storage online.

"The ease of simply `plugging in' to an existing Avid bay with little downtime was extremely helpful. FibreNet is exceptionally solid in its performance and that alone is what elevates it above others."

"We're extremely pleased that our FibreNet solution and technology are embraced by the post-production community including Academy Award-winning editors of major motion pictures. This truly exemplifies that our FibreNet solution is proven and has a crucial role in movie production and post. Enabling reliable shared storage networks in very demanding environments is one of Transoft's primary goals," commented Akila Krish, business manager, Transoft Networks.

About Transoft Networks, a Hewlett-Packard Company

Transoft Networks is the world's premier provider of fast, integrated SAN (Storage Area Network) solutions focused on Digital, Streaming and Rich Media Markets. Transoft pioneered and continues to lead in open systems SAN and was acquired by the Hewlett-Packard Company in May of 1999. Transoft Networks (www.transoftnetworks.com) has headquarters in Santa Barbara, with offices worldwide.