AvidProNet Launches Review & Approval

TEWKSBURY, MA (Feb. 26, 2001) -- AvidProNet, the Avid online content, community and services portal for media creation professionals, today announced the availability of its Review & Approval service. The Review & Approval service is the first Internet browser-based application for frame-accurate review and approval of video content, which can be integrated directly into an Avid workflow. By making projects available for comments online, the Review & Approval service breaks the boundaries of time and geography, significantly reducing cycle time, while increasing the accuracy and overall quality of the review process.

This new service transforms the traditional, often tedious review and approval process -- reviewing, distributing and tracking multiple versions of videotape -- into a convenient, efficient and straightforward online process. Using a Web browser, the Review & Approval software, and an Internet-connected system, reviewers can participate in the review and approval process anytime and from anywhere - whether at work, home or on the road.

"We have created the Review & Approval service in direct response to customer demand," stated Janette Bradley, director of AvidProNet. "This new Web-based service offers benefits to all parties involved in creating, reviewing and finalizing video content, making the approval process much faster and easier all the way around. Media creators can produce more work, ultimately making them more profitable, and their customers can document their comments in a highly precise fashion, whenever and wherever they are."

How Review & Approval Works
Media creators simply upload their video project onto the Web and assign individuals to review the content. Each designated reviewer receives an email, complete with a password for security purposes, inviting them to review and comment on the piece. Reviewers can make their frame-accurate comments while connected to the Internet or while working offline. Originators can monitor the status of reviewers from the AvidProNet Web site and can either view comments in a browser or save them as a Review & Approval file that can be incorporated directly into the Timeline of a supported Avid editing system.

A Secure and Simple Service
The Review & Approval service offers many improvements over other attempts to improve this process. Encryption of media files offers security typically not available with email or FTP-based solutions. And by using the Internet, media creators are not held to the artificial deadlines imposed by overnight delivery services.

"We are a production company with clients everywhere but here," says Tom Reid Producer and Director of Launch, a production company based in Cypress Gardens, FL. "The Review & Approval service provides an essential connection to our clients without tapes or travel."

Pricing
The Review & Approval service will be offered free of charge through March 4, 2001. As of March 5, 2001, pricing for the Review & Approval service begins at US$38 per review and varies according to file size, level of encryption security and number of reviewers. The Review & Approval software is free to download. Details about pricing can be found on the AvidProNet Web site at avidpronet.com.

About AvidProNet
AvidProNet, the Avid Technology, Inc. online content, community and services portal for media creation professionals, develops virtual production environments for the film, video, broadcast, gaming and Web design industries. For more information, visit the AvidProNet Web site at www.avidpronet.com.

About Avid Technology, Inc.
Avid Technology's products are used to make more television and news shows, commercials, music videos and CDs, corporate/industrial productions and major motion pictures combined than any other nonlinear editing manufacturer. More information about the company is available at www.avid.com.