21st Century Media Relies on Discreet cleaner 6 to Encode Apple 2003 Worldwide Developers Conference.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

Apple Worldwide Developers Conference

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 23, 2003

Rich Media Services Provider to Encode Over 180 Conference

Sessions for Online Streaming and DVD-ROM for

Fourth Consecutive Year

Discreet, a division of Autodesk Inc. (Nasdaq:ADSK), today announced that Los Angeles-based 21st Century Media Inc., (www.21stcenturymedia.com) a leading rich media services provider, will provide video encoding services for the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) sessions -- taking place this week in San Francisco. 21st Century Media will rely on Discreet cleaner(TM) 6 software to encode over 200 hours of content from 180 conference sessions. The WWDC sessions will be streamed in QuickTime MPEG-4 format from the Apple Developer Connection (ADC) Television site and also made available in a DVD-ROM box set. While freeware and bundled encoding solutions exist in the market -- when it comes to industrial-size jobs, the scalability and automated workflow of Discreet cleaner -- along with seamless integration with an Apple Xserve production topology -- keeps it as the defacto choice for encoding, compression and media mastering for QuickTime.

"We've built our enterprise-level encoding operations around Discreet cleaner. Our corporate customers benefit from the high volume of compressed video we can process and deliver, not only at multiple bit rates, but at the highest quality, and in the largest number of formats," said Jim Baker, Founder and CEO, 21st Century Media. "Apple chose 21st Century Media again this year because we are experts in handling very large quantities of media in a short turnaround time without sacrificing quality. To achieve this, we have leveraged the Discreet cleaner software's 'watch folder' functionality that allows us to distribute large workloads across multiple, top-of-the-range Apple Xserve machines, creating a very fast, very powerful encoding workflow."

All of the 200+ developer conference sessions taking place at the Apple WWDC will be shot on DVCAM and delivered to 21st Century Media immediately following the conference. The production pipeline (completely Mac OS X-based), will be set up with at least 20 Discreet cleaner 6 encoding stations, fed by four capture workstations, and connected to multiple Apple Xserve RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) storage units over 2Gb fibre. Because Discreet cleaner 6 software sits so well within the Mac OS X-based, AppleScript workflow, it can take full advantage of Xserve and Xserve RAID to deliver high-quality QuickTime MPEG-4 compressed content.

"The additional advantages we find in working with Discreet cleaner software are its scalability and robust feature set," added Baker. "Because we are working with over 20 seats of encoding software to meet the demands of high-volume encoding, we must have a solution that is both fault-tolerant and able to balance the work load. There is no doubt in my mind that cleaner delivers."

About Discreet cleaner 6 for Macintosh

cleaner 6 for Mac operates natively in the Mac OS X Aqua user interface. New watch folders, drag and drop capabilities and nested settings streamline workflow and allow customers to complete projects with greater efficiency. Taking full advantage of Mac OS X's true memory protection, preemptive multi-tasking and symmetric multiprocessing when running on the dual processor Power Mac G4, cleaner 6 makes streaming media encoding easier and faster. For more information about Discreet's encoding and streaming media products go to: www.discreet.com/products/.

Pricing and Availability

cleaner 6 for Mac is available for an SRP of US $599. The Discreet e-store is located at www.discreet.com/purchase.

About Discreet

Discreet empowers moving media professionals to realize the visual experience, transforming their most evocative and ambitious visions into reality. Its range of award-winning systems and software is developed for digital media creation, management and delivery -- across all disciplines from visual effects and editing to animation, game development, web/interactive design, and design visualization. Discreet is based in Montreal, Quebec and is a division of Autodesk, Inc., the world's leading design and digital media creation, management, and distribution company. Product and corporate information is located on the Internet at www.discreet.com.

Discreet is a division of Autodesk, Inc. Discreet and cleaner are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc./Autodesk Canada Inc. in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. (C)2003 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.