Canopus Unveils Special Promo to Celebrate Five Years of Scalable Technology; Free StormEncoder Offered to Pinnacle and Matrox Users Who Upgrade To Award-Winning DVStorm SE.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Canopus Corporation, makers of award-winning, realtime digital video editing systems, today announced its Scalable Technology Celebration Offer to commemorate the fifth anniversary of its award-winning digital video architecture. Owners of qualifying Pinnacle and Matrox nonlinear editing solutions who purchase Canopus's acclaimed DVStorm SE will receive a complimentary StormEncoder, the company's powerful, realtime MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 hardware encoding module. Owners of qualifying Canopus products can also take advantage of this offer. This promotion runs from July 1, 2002 to August 31, 2002. Users can visit http://www.canopuscorp.com/ for a list of qualifying cards and promotion details.

"Five years ago we realized our customers prefer to upgrade their computer CPUs rather than buy new video editing systems each year," said Robert Sharp, vice president of marketing and domestic sales at Canopus. "Our scalable technology makes it possible for our editing systems to grow with the customer's CPU power and through software upgrades. We're providing this special bonus to get more video professionals to join the Canopus family and experience scalable technology, along with true realtime performance, first hand."

Five Years of Scalable Technology Architecture - The Canopus Difference

For five years, Canopus's Scalable Technology Architecture has harnessed the power of the CPU to deliver more features. This Scalable Technology Architecture is designed to take full advantage of escalating CPU power as it becomes available, allowing users who upgrade to faster systems to reap performance gains while retaining their original Canopus hardware. It also makes it easy to add new features to existing Canopus NLE solutions through simple software updates that can be downloaded from the Canopus Website. This further extends the life of the NLE system and gives editors a much higher return on their original investment.

About DVStorm SE

DVStorm SE combines stability, reliability, and affordability with an extensive high-performance feature set that delivers render-free, realtime native DV editing, realtime DV and analog capture and output (1394/i.LINK, S-Video or composite), up to five simultaneous, realtime video streams, and MPEG output for DVD and Internet streaming. For compelling content creation users can take advantage of DVStorm SE's impressive set of editing tools that deliver an assortment of realtime capabilities including multiple moving titles and graphics layers, audio and video filters, and transitions. DVStorm SE features over 23 realtime filters, such as color correction, motion blur, old movie, picture-in-picture, chroma key, luma key and chrominance.

Priced at $1088 (MSRP), DVStorm SE includes Xplode Basics 3D transitions software, StormEdit, a realtime editing application, SoftMPG for MPEG and streaming output capabilities, Sonic DVDit! LE DVD authoring software, Boris Graffiti Ltd., and Sonic Foundry ACID Style. Canopus also offers a DVStorm SE Plus version priced at $1299 (MSRP) that also includes Adobe Premiere 6.0 and a StormBay breakout box.

About StormEncoder

With StormEncoder, DVStorm SE customers are able to quickly encode their video content directly from DV and analog sources using Canopus's new MediaCruise control software that features an easy-to-use GUI for effortless MPEG encoding. StormEncoder is based on the MN85560 MPEG encoder chip from Panasonic in combination with Canopus' MPEG audio encoding technology to deliver the high-quality video and audio output required for DVD authoring and video streaming. StormEncoder encodes footage in realtime (and in near realtime when encoding from Adobe Premiere) using Main Profile at Main Level MPEG-2 (MP@ML). While other MPEG-2 systems use I-frame or IP-frame only, MP@ML provides true IBP frame format. Encoding in MP@ML provides the highest quality at the lowest bandwidth.

With variable and constant bit rate options (from 1Mbps to 15Mbps), users can adjust the bandwidth depending on the complexity of the video. Variable bit rate encoding is one of the most effective techniques used to maintain video quality while reducing file size. On the audio front, StormEncoder supports PCM and MPEG Layer II formats up to 48khz at 16 bits.

About Canopus Corporation

Based in San Jose, Calif., Canopus Corporation manufactures award-winning, nonlinear video editing products for video professionals and enthusiasts. Canopus's DV editing, MPEG-2 encoding and 3D DVE products combine innovative hardware and software designs to set new standards in performance, functionality and reliability. Canopus Corporation has offices in the UK, Germany, Australia and China in addition to an extensive worldwide distributor network. Canopus Corporation's parent company, Canopus Co., Ltd., with headquarters in Kobe, is Japan's largest maker of video editing and graphics products. For more information contact Canopus at 408-954-4500 or visit their Web site at http://www.canopuscorp.com/.

NOTE: Canopus is a registered trademark and ADVC-1394 is a trademark of Canopus Corporation. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.

MAKE YOUR OPINION COUNT - Click Here http://tbutton.prnewswire.com/prn/11690X24612332

Contact: Sarah Kavanagh, Public Relations, [phone], or [e-mail], for Canopus Corporation; or Robert Sharp, VP of Marketing and Domestic Sales of Canopus Corporation, [phone], or [e-mail]

Website: http://www.canopuscorp.com/