BBC Technology Sells Colledia to Reality TV Leader in Hollywood.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

NAB2004

Booth #SU8469

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 21, 2004

Deal Marks Entry into Hollywood Production Community with

Premier Video Equipment Rental Company, Wexler Video

BBC Technology, provider of products and services to global media-driven organizations, today announced at NAB2004 the sale of Colledia(TM) for production to Wexler Video Inc., a leading equipment and services provider to the Hollywood production and postproduction community. Wexler rents equipment to producers responsible for creating primetime reality TV programming around the world and will provide Colledia for production to their customers for content digitization and program making. (BBC Technology, booth #SU8469, National Association of Broadcasters conference, Las Vegas, April 17-22, 2004)

Wexler Video selected BBC Technology's production workflow software, Colledia because the toolset addresses and resolves many of the issues its customers face with tape-based production. The product will help Wexler's customers streamline their workflows by enabling collaboration across the media lifecycle, from ingest to edit and play-out. Moreover, Colledia for production supports open standards and is designed to service a range of applications, for small, economically staffed teams to large-scale global production departments.

"In the past, the major benefits of working with computerized, networked tools for video and film production were reserved for editors. With Colledia for production, the entire production team can access the features and benefits from anywhere on the media enterprise," said Chris Thompson, president of Wexler Video Inc. "Colledia for production essentially replaces the physical management of videotapes in the workflow and incorporates on a computer network platform the tools our customers need for logging, viewing, storing and securely sharing content (without creating dozens of tapes and shipping them around the world). Providing state of the art technology like Colledia for production tells our customers that Wexler is investing in their future."

"Earlier digital production tools have largely worked in isolation, each fulfilling a specific task in a linear production chain but not working together to deliver a joined up digital production process," said Mitchell Linden, senior vice president North America, BBC Technology. "Wexler's customers will be attracted to Colledia for production because it will allow them to make programs cost-effectively. Dailies and archive material are digitized once and once only. Metadata captured upstream is retained throughout the production process and beyond. Production teams are able to search and view material directly from their desktop. And, all of this happens without the inherent limitations of tape-based operations," added Linden.

"We have seen several systems that have approached the concept of allowing an entire production team to share and work with content across a secure network," said Don Rohrer, director of Non-Linear Systems at Wexler Video. "Colledia for production got our attention when it delivered as promised in the very first demo. It worked! Hence, we thought it would be to our advantage to introduce it to our customers now. We think our customers could find a lot of value in the functions that Colledia for production offers and it's on a hardware platform that is very straightforward and easy to support. We are excited about getting this system and its tools into the hands of our customers."

About the companies:

About Wexler Video

Wexler Video, one of the largest rental houses in the country, serves as a one-stop shop, all the way from production to post production. The Burbank, Calif.-based company powers the majority of the reality TV on television today, not only renting broadcast gear and production packages, but also developing specific solutions that allow customers to capture hard-to-get shots. Technical staff in Wexler's Special Projects Engineering Department engineer and test the special pieces required for each unique stunt and shot. For more information about Wexler Video visit www.wexlervideo.com.

About BBC Technology

Founded in March 2001, BBC Technology provides products and services for both the BBC and other global media-driven organizations. Drawing on eight decades of pioneering technical expertise and innovation for the BBC, BBC Technology helps organizations create, manage and distribute content more effectively across multiple platforms. BBC Technology's products and services include: the award-winning Colledia product portfolio, Colledia Control, media communications, Internet solutions, and consulting services. Customers include: BBC News, BSkyB, DIRECTV Inc., ESPN Inc., Hutchison 3G, SABC and Scottish Enterprise.

The BBC is currently managing the sale of BBC Technology, which will also incorporate a procurement process for a new technology services contract for the Corporation (see press release, 'BBC to Sell Technology Subsidiary', November 27, 2003). The move follows a strategic review of the BBC's technology requirements for the next decade, which identified potential annual savings for the BBC of between GBP 20-GBP 30m if its technology services were outsourced. Combining the procurement process with the sale of BBC Technology as a whole means the BBC can leverage maximum value and, as a result, invest more money in its programs and services. The move offers growth opportunities for the 1400 staff at BBC Technology as the company is attracting bids from major technology businesses with scale and expertise. It is anticipated that the process will be complete in Autumn 2004.