BitJazz Press Releases
October 28, 2003

Real-Time Y'CbCr Capture with Nondestructive SheerVideo Codec from BitJazz Inc.

World's Fastest Video Codec Doubles Disk and Network Speed and Capacity Without Information Loss

SAN FRANCISCO, California - October 28, 2003 -- BitJazz Inc. announces the immediate availability of SheerVideo™ Pro v1.2, the latest version of its revolutionary ultrafast and powerful nondestructive software video codec for the production and archival of professional film and video. Designed to overcome the hitherto nearly insurmountable obstacles of space and time blocking the use of studio-quality uncompressed video and film, SheerVideo doubles both the capacity and speed of storage and transmission devices while encoding and decoding on the fly with perfect fidelity. In version 1.2 of SheerVideo, support for native video (Y'CbCr[A]) formats is greatly enhanced.

direct encoding to Sheer Y'CbCr

In QuickTime 6, SheerVideo v1.2 can now export or capture Y'CbCr formats directly through the Sheer encoders --without using the Sheer transcoders. This gives programs that don't support transcoders full access to SheerVideo Y'CbCr, and simplifies the use of programs that do. And for applications that prefer transcoders, the Sheer Y'CbCr transcoders are still included.

real-time capture to Sheer Y'CbCr

With SheerVideo 1.2, video capture applications such as BTV Pro and Hack TV can now capture component video in real time directly to all Sheer Y'CbCr formats, including 4:4:4 and 4:2:2, as well as to Sheer RGB formats. By digitizing video to slim Sheer formats instead of to the corresponding obese uncompressed formats, users can take advantage of slower, cheaper disks, while capturing twice as much uncompressed-quality video in the same amount of disk space.

Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 4:4:4[:4] display

Using the latest release of SheerVideo, applications can now display Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 4:4:4[:4] video even without hardware support for Y'CbCr[A] 4:4:4[:4] formats. So users can now view Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 4:4:4[:4] frames without first restoring the uncompressed video.

speed+power+quality = win+win+win

SheerVideo's unprecedented combination of speed, power, and quality adds up to an indisputable winner that saves users time, space, and money, while preserving image quality with perfect fidelity. 50 times faster than any other lossless codec and 4 times faster than any high-quality lossy codec, SheerVideo is the fastest video codec in the world, fast enough to stay well ahead of any transmission channel or storage device. At the same time, SheerVideo is among the most powerful nondestructive codecs in existence for real-world data, and is the only perfect-fidelity codec that compresses native video (Y'CbCr[A]) formats. Yet unlike image-degrading codecs such as DV, JPEG, MPEG, and even DigiBeta, SheerVideo preserves every single bit of information, so that the restored image is always bit-for-bit identical to the original uncompressed image. This means that with SheerVideo, one can transmit uncompressed-quality video in half the time over half the bandwidth, and store it in half the time in half the space.

versatility

SheerVideo supports both RGB[A] 8b, for film and computer-generated imagery, and all popular professional Y'CbCr[A] 8b formats, including both 4:4:4[:4] and 4:2:2, for native video. Support for 10-bit channels is about to enter the beta-testing phase, and 16-bit channels are coming soon as well. SheerVideo supports all resolutions, including SD and HD, NTSC and PAL, 4:3 and 16:9, progressive and interlaced.

price and availability

SheerVideo is implemented as a set of QuickTime codecs, so it can be used with all popular professional video applications, including Apple Final Cut Pro, Adobe After Effects, Pinnacle Commotion, and hundreds more. On Windows, SheerVideo will also soon be available as a Windows Media (AVI) codec. SheerVideo is currently available as a commercial product for Mac OS X and Mac OS 8|9, and as a beta product for PC+Windows. The PC+Linux edition is also expected soon. SheerVideo for Mac includes versions of each codec optimized for both G3 and G4 (AltiVec), and the decoders are multiprocessor-enabled, so it can make the most of whatever processors are available. SheerVideo Pro costs $149 for a single license, $99 in quantity. A fully functional free tryout is available for download from http://www.bitjazz.com/, as is a free Reader. Installer and automatic updater included.

About BitJazz Inc.

BitJazz Inc. is the market leader in lossless image compression technology and development. The company first made headlines in 1998 with PhotoJazz, a revolutionary nondestructive image codec whose compression power of 2.5 for real-world imagery leapfrogged PNG's previous record of 1.8. For additional company and product information, please visit http://www.bitjazz.com/.

BitJazz, SheerVideo, and PhotoJazz are trademarks of BitJazz Inc. All other product names and company names are trademarks of their respective owners. SheerVideo is protected by US Patent 7,693,339.