EMediaLive.com: Inlet Technologies and NetBlender Knock Down Barriers to Blu-ray Production

Inlet Technologies , the leader in advanced encoding solutions for new media, announced today that it is partnering with NetBlender, makers of DoStudio software for professional Blu-ray authoring, to bring high-quality Blu-ray Disc production within the reach of every studio. Inlet’s latest release of Fathom®, an advanced encoding platform, produces files in any of the codecs that Blu-ray supports.

“In the past, smaller, independent production houses faced barriers to the creation of high-quality professional Blu-ray content because of the high equipment cost,” said John Harrington, NetBlender CEO. “Working with Inlet, we are helping to eliminate that digital divide by providing a more economical solution for this growing market that wants to take full advantage of Blu-ray technology and all it has to offer.”

The joint Inlet/NetBlender solution should help propel the growth of Blu-ray by enabling a much greater variety of content for the new HD format. According to market research firm Futuresource , U.S. consumers are expected to buy 45 million Blu-ray Discs by the end of 2008, up about 400 percent compared to last year.

Typecast Films and VoloHD are leveraging Inlet’s Fathom and NetBlender’s DoStudio to satisfy customer demand for BD. Typecast Films, an independent film production and distribution company, recently released its Academy Award and Emmy-nominated documentary Iraq in Fragments on Blu-ray Disc. The company partnered with VoloHD for HD production work and encoding.

“This is our first foray into the Blu-ray Disc market and we would not have been able to do it without the technology and support from Inlet and NetBlender,” said Joshua Warren of Typecast Films.

“It was very important to the integrity of Iraq in Fragments that the Blu-ray encode be faithful to the color and depth of the original film master. The film has a unique blend of color, modern cinematography and editing - the dynamic nature of the film makes for a very complicated job for an encoder,” said Marshall Riser with Volo HD. “We've been very impressed with the quality and detail achieved with the use of Fathom.”

Fathom and DoStudio together provide Blu-ray Disc authors with an easy-to-use, collaborative solution for creating high-speed, high-quality professional Blu-ray Discs without the costs associated with other solutions.