Bitstream Releases Beta Version of btX2, Premier Font Rendering Technology for Linux.

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 4, 2002

Beta Release Allows Developers to Render High-quality, Compact

Latin and Asian Fonts for Digital TV and Embedded Systems

Bitstream Inc. (Nasdaq:BITS) today announced the beta release of btX2(TM), Bitstream's font rendering solution for Linux(R).

btX2 is a FreeType driver that provides access to Bitstream's Font Fusion(TM) font technology. btX2 allows developers to use the same function calls as FreeType. btX2 supports Unicode encoding and can render international fonts.

"Bitstream, the leader in font technology, has developed a premier font subsystem for Linux. While FreeType is an excellent font rendering system, btX2 offers clear advantages," said Anna Chagnon, President of Bitstream.

"btX2 is able to render eight font formats, including compact PFRs as well as compact Asian stroke-based fonts, that can fit in embedded Linux systems and interactive TV devices, where space and memory are at a premium. btX2 also has a TV mode that allows developers to fine tune the output on the screen. With its support for Unicode and international fonts, btX2 provides small, fast font technology for Linux developers."

Besides rendering industry-standard TrueType, Type 1, and PFR font formats, btX2 lets developers render very compact Asian fonts in stroke-based format. Stroke-based fonts replace a large unmanageable font with a compact manageable one. With stroke-based fonts, developers can:

-- Scale characters to any size

-- Use one font for all weights and styles, from light to bold

-- Include all the characters in the font without having to subset it

Stroke-based fonts and btX2 provide a high-end font engine that can fine-tune output for computer monitors, TV screens, and LCD displays. Developers can use the native TV mode that Font Fusion offers to optimize the output on television screens.

Bitstream also lets developers create their own portable font resources (PFRs). The PFR is a compact, platform independent format for representing high-quality characters from scalable fonts. The Bitstream PFR font format is open, public, and an industry standard.

The Bitstream PFR is the standard font format for digital TV. Many independent organizations responsible for setting digital TV standards have adopted the PFR font format as their de facto, standard font format for digital television:

-- ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee), which approved

the DTV Application Software Environment (DASE) standard. The

DASE standard calls out the ISO standard for fonts, which is

the PFR

-- DAVIC (Digital Audio Visual Council), which set multimedia

standards for international broadcasting

-- DTG (Digital TV Group), which coordinates standards for

Digital TV broadcasting in the United Kingdom

-- DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting), a Swiss-based industry

organization representing one standard for digital TV, which

has been adopted extensively in Europe

-- MHP (Multimedia Home Platform), which many European set-top

box and digital TV manufacturers are using as their standard

development platform

-- ISO/IEC 16500-6:1999 (International Organization for

Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission),

which together form the specialized system for worldwide

standardization

-- OCAP (OpenCable Application Platform), which supports the

DVB-MHP standard, including support for PFRs

In addition, the beta release of btX2 includes a core set of 13 delta-hinted, TrueType screen fonts. Delta hinting involves fine-tuning fonts so that they look good on the screen, even at small point sizes on low-resolution devices, such as computer monitors.

The core set of delta-hinted fonts shipped with btX2 includes:

-- Courier 10 (roman, italic, bold, and bold italic)

-- Dutch(TM) 801 (roman, italic, bold, and bold italic)

-- Swiss(TM) 721 (roman, italic, bold, and bold italic)

-- Symbol Set

For information on btX2, contact Bitstream at 800/522-3668 or 617/497-6222, e-mail the company at [e-mail], or visit them on the Web at http://www.bitstream.com.

About Font Fusion

Font Fusion provides developers with full font fidelity and high-quality typographic output at any resolution on any device, while maintaining the integrity of the original character shapes. Font Fusion is small and fast. Most developers can compile the source code in 32-105 KB, depending on options. It generates more than 16,000 characters per second, using the Arial font at 25 lines per em on a 233MHz Pentium(R) II processor, cache turned off.

Font Fusion performs well in memory- and performance-constrained environments. For example, a complete traditional Chinese TrueType font with more than 13,000 characters can occupy as much as 8MB. With Font Fusion, the same characters occupy less than 0.5MB, representing considerable savings in memory and disk space costs.

Font Fusion is designed for operating systems, software applications, Web applications, low-resolution screen devices, multimedia servers, high-definition television screens (HDTVs), set-top boxes, continuous tone printers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and other embedded systems and information and wireless appliances.

About Bitstream

Bitstream is the leading developer of font technology, digital fonts, and custom font designs. Bitstream licenses its award-winning TrueDoc(R) and Font Fusion(TM) technologies to Web and application developers, and to manufacturers of information appliances, wireless and handheld devices, set-top boxes, embedded systems, and printers.

Setting the standard for excellence in font technology, Bitstream holds numerous key patents in the United States that cover the creation of portable fonts for the Internet. Building on this experience, Bitstream has released ThunderHawk(TM), a breakthrough technology for the wireless Web.

Founded in 1981, Bitstream is the first digital font foundry. In 1999, Bitstream created MyFonts.com Inc. (http://www.myfonts.com), the Web site for finding, trying, and buying fonts online. Bitstream has headquarters in Cambridge. Find out more about Bitstream at http://www.bitstream.com.

Note to Editors: Bitstream and TrueDoc are registered trademarks, and btX2, Dutch, Font Fusion, Swiss, and ThunderHawk are trademarks of Bitstream Inc. Other technologies and brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.