Access Technology Taps Spruce DVDMaestro To Deliver DVD-Based Safety Kiosk For Aearo and Home Depot.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 14, 1999--

Access Technology, an Indianapolis-based interactive media developer, is using Spruce Technologies' DVDMaestro(tm), the world's leading Windows NT-based authoring system, to deliver a sophisticated interactive kiosk system for a joint project between Home Depot and Aearo Corporation. The kiosks are being installed in Home Depot's new Village Hardware Stores, which are beginning operations in July 1999, to market Aearo's AOSafety personal protective equipment.

"When we needed a DVD authoring system to start this project about three months ago, we took a good look at what was available. With important clients like Aearo and Home Depot on the line, we needed a solid system that we could work with right out of the box," said Mark Gamache, Vice President of Access Technology. "As it turned out, the decision was easy. While plenty of manufacturers promised a lot of features, Spruce's DVDMaestro was the only shipping product that combined the key authoring tools with a good, friendly interface. The choice was clearly the right one, because here we are three months later and the first systems are installed and our clients are quite happy."

The project called for Access to create an informative kiosk that would integrate into the AOSafety product display space within the Home Depot Village Hardware stores. The interactive kiosk provides consumers with a choice of either directly accessing information about specific products, or learning what safety product is appropriate to a particular project by responding to a series of questions.

"The kiosk allows us to present our safety products in a way that is both informative and entertaining," explained Jim Gray, Director, Marketing Services of Aearo Corporation. "The technology engages customers in selecting appropriate safety gear and helps raise awareness of these important -- but often overlooked -- products."

Interactivity and flexibility were only part of the equation behind Access Technology's decision to use DVD. Access Technology proposed the DVD kiosk over a traditional PC laptop-based design because DVD offered the potential for significantly lowering the cost of distribution. According to Gamache, a touch screen DVD system can be created for under $2,000 (U.S.). A comparable laptop-driven kiosk would cost nearly twice as much and can't deliver the consistent long-term service of the DVD solution. Even using industrial-grade DVD players delivers a substantially lower cost per unit. DVD also promised a higher level of durability.

"DVDMaestro made building the kiosk system very easy. We particularly appreciated the extensive preview system designed into DVDMaestro. We were able to put elements together, set up the navigation controls and then see how the project looked up to that point. DVDMaestro let us make changes on the fly so we could continuously revise the project until we were satisfied with the results," says Gamache.

The Access Technology production facility digitally connects DVDMaestro with the company's digital beta tape decks, DAT systems, voice-over equipment and video editing systems for seamless, high-quality composition of projects.

Further information about Access Technology is available at www.atiweb.com.

About Spruce Technologies, Inc.

Spruce Technologies develops and markets DVD authoring software and MPEG encoders for the corporate, new media, and entertainment markets. Based in San Jose, California, Spruce combines the best Silicon Valley software expertise with extensive DVD, MPEG and video postproduction knowledge.

For more information, contact Spruce at 408/861-2200. Additional information about Spruce is also available on the World Wide Web at: http://www.spruce-tech.com.

Note to Editors: Spruce Technologies, Inc., Spruce, DVDMaestro, DVDStation, MPEGXpress and ACXpress are trademarks of Spruce Technologies, Inc. Other company and product names are trademarks of their respective owners and may be registered in certain jurisdictions.