Sonic Solutions, today announced a broad program to support the "next big thing" in home video — the arrival of 3D in the home — with new professional and consumer solutions for the creation, publishing, and playback of 3D digital video content. Sonic is unique in its focus on "Hollywood-to-Home" solutions that enable the growth of new video formats, and Sonic's new 3D offerings will help to fuel the availability and consumer adoption of 3D video.
"With Stereo-3D hits blowing the doors off the box office, it's clear that this new format has strong consumer appeal," said Dr. Jon Peddie, President, Jon Peddie Research. "Now that Stereo-3D displays can be delivered to the family room, the industry needs a technology supplier who can handle the content chain from authoring to delivery and playback – and that's far from a trivial task. With a strong track record in helping to establish new formats, Sonic is ideally positioned to deliver on this challenge."
3D Authoring Technologies for Hollywood
On the professional side, Sonic has developed tools that allow Hollywood studios to encode video, author interactivity, and format titles for release over the internet and in the new Blu-ray 3D™ format. "We fully anticipate that the tremendous consumer interest in 3D movies at the theater, will translate into high demand for 3D home- video titles," said Lee Evans, Executive Vice President, Ambient Digital Media, Inc. "Armed with Sonic professional products, we are ready to meet that demand and deliver reliable, consistent, and exciting 3D home experiences."
Digital 3D Entertainment Delivery
The RoxioNow™ entertainment platform serves a broad range of premium content, including new movies and next-day TV programs, to a growing, multi-manufacturer ecosystem of home and mobile electronics including PCs, connected TVs, set-top DVRs, Blu-ray Disc players, smartphones, and mobile media devices. RoxioNow already powers digital storefronts on 3D-enabled HDTVs and Blu-ray Disc players and is primed to deliver 3D content once titles become available for online distribution.
3D Consumer Playback
For consumer playback, Sonic's has released a new version of Roxio CinePlayer® BD that allows users to play 3D Blu-ray titles as well as content downloaded from on-line video providers. CinePlayer BD also supports real-time conversion of 2D video to 3D, allowing 3D viewing of a user's existing library of standard DVDs and personal home movies. ASUSTeK Computer, a leading manufacturer of personal computers based in Taiwan, will be shipping CinePlayer with its new line of 3D-enabled notebook computers. "ASUS' new G-series notebooks are the first 3D notebooks with 3D glasses and 120Hz special panels to ship worldwide. With the inclusion of Roxio CinePlayer BD, the 3D notebook can deliver an even richer 3D playback experience," said Ellis Wang, Director Software Planning & Management, ASUS. "With its ability to play new 3D titles as well as convert standard DVDs and video from 2D to 3D, CinePlayer greatly enriches the user experience for both Hollywood movies and personal home videos."
3D Personal Videos
Roxio Video Lab 3D, a new consumer product from Sonic, allows consumers to edit and burn personal 3D content on standard DVDs; these discs can then be played back on any standard DVD or Blu-ray player connected to 3D-enabled HDTVs or PCs.
"Sonic has a long history of enabling new entertainment delivery formats – CD, DVD, BD, web-based video distribution, and now 3D," said Mark Ely, Executive Vice President, Strategy, Sonic Solutions. "Our ‘Total 3D' initiative is the next step in our Hollywood-to-Home strategy. With our professional tools, we can enable the Hollywood studios to publish their content in the 3D format, and the expertise we gain on the professional side allows us to engineer better consumer products with higher performance and broader compatibility." Sonic executed a similar Hollywood-to-Home strategy with the launch of DVD when Sonic's professional tools first became the industry standard for publishing movies on DVD, then the de-facto standard for consumer DVD formatting with hundreds of millions of copies distributed by PC and CE manufacturers.
The Sonic professional tools for 3D encoding and 3D authoring and formatting were announced earlier this month. Roxio CinePlayer BD was released this month for PC OEM shipments. Roxio Video Lab will available to PC OEMs in May. Sonic plans to release additional 3D products and services later this year.
