Sonopress' First Playable HD DVD Made with DCA DiscTag Enabled Workflow Components.

CUSHING, Okla. -- Doug Carson & Associates, Inc. (DCA) proudly announces that Sonopress in Weaverville, N.C. has produced their first playable run of HD DVD discs today using DCA DiscTag Enabled workflow components, including Viper Loader, MIS Pro HD DVD formatter and Viper Verify applications. Glass mastering was performed on the Singulus 266 LBR.

DCA and Sonopress worked together on-site with Singulus over a 4 week period to tune-in the 266 LBR and produce the first run of playable discs.

The DiscTag Enabled workflow uses a unique marker on each layer as a key to retrieve a "Gold Reference" HCRC value and XML metadata from a network location and enable automatic physical testing with HCRC logical verification. The XML metadata contains customer, catalog, format type, and job report information for each application that touches the title. HCRC values provide verification of the replica against the original source data without the need for the original source to be present, while additionally reporting individual miscompare errors by sector and radius location.

"DCA & Sonopress have a long history of working together toward innovative methods of increasing plant productivity," says Eric Carson, product manager for DCA. "We are pleased that Sonopress has chosen to manufacture right from the start with DCA for 3G format development."

Mark Schlorff, Senior Mastering Engineer at Sonopress, says, "DCA's DiscTag Enabled solutions and top-notch on-the-ground and phone support made producing HD DVD in Weaverville exceptionally quick and easy. In addition, the advanced write strategy available with DCA's MIS Pro formatter made dialing in the Singulus 266 LBR as painless as possible."

There are several possible applications for DCA's DiscTag Enabled workflow in the replication chain, including:

--Automatic Testing & Verification -- testers & verifiers can retrieve the DiscTag marker from a replica to automatically populate the user interface and start testing/verification with no operator intervention,

--Automatic Layer Matching -- testers & verifiers can retrieve the DiscTag marker on each layer to ensure that both layers belong together, and

--Job Histories/Audit Trails -- plant personnel can use the web-based DCA Title Manager software to lookup job history reports using either the DiscTag from a replica or a host of other parameters, including Customer Name, Catalog ID, Cut Number and Date Range.

About DCA, Inc.

DCA, Inc., Doug Carson & Associates, (http://www.dcainc.com) is the industry's leading provider of world class signal processing technology. Since 1988, optical disc manufacturers have relied on DCA's pre-mastering, mastering and verification products. DCA's products include DDP Pro and DDP Toolkit tools, MIS (Mastering Interface System) and Commander. DCA is also heavily involved in new optical disc format developments such as HD DVD and Blu-ray. DCA continues to champion new solutions for next generation discs, including its DiscTag, HCRC and job history metadata for automated verification, testing and tracking of job information.

About Sonopress

Sonopress LLC, part of arvato, a Bertelsmann company, is a global leader in media replication and turnkey services. Sonopress possesses the technological expertise to produce the widest variety of analog and digital media formats currently on the market (cassettes, CD, DVD, DVD Hybrid). The company's services include pre-mastering, optical mastering and replication, graphics sourcing, packaging, assembling, warehousing and distribution. The Sonopress global network, with more than 3,900 employees, places customer service and product quality as its top priorities. For further information visit: www.sonopress.com.

Copyright 2006, DCA, Inc. All rights reserved. MIS, DDP and DiscTag are trademarks of DCA, Inc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.