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| | BitJazz Press Releases BitJazz Ships Lossless, Photo-Quality Compression Solution
Advanced Technology Enables 2.5X Compression of Files with Zero Degradation; SAN FRANCISCO, CA - November 10, 1998 -- BitJazz Inc. today announced it is shipping PhotoJazz™, a $99 Microsoft® Windows® and Mac® OS solution enabling lossless compression averaging 2.5X in photo-quality images. Designed initially for use with the Adobe® product family, the perfectly lossless technology used in PhotoJazz allows graphics professionals to cut file sizes to less than half their original image size for efficient transmission and storage with no loss of quality. PhotoJazz technology is fully compatible with Adobe's desktop publishing products, including Photoshop®, Illustrator®, ImageReady™ and ImageStyler™. A demo version of PhotoJazz is available for immediate download from http://www.bitjazz.com/, as is a free PhotoJazz file reader for Mac and Windows. Breakthrough Technology Enables Average 2.5 Lossless Compression Ratio PhotoJazz employs revolutionary technology to exploit a process BitJazz calls condensation. Theoretically rooted in quantum thermodynamics and information theory, condensation enables a lossless compression ratio averaging 2.5 on Kodak's standard color test photos, the highest commercial lossless compression available for photo-quality images. Additionally, BitJazz uses the same amount of memory for any size image, and compresses 3 times as fast as PNG (Portable Network Graphics). Using PhotoJazz, a 4.5MB, 1536x1024-pixel photo-quality RGB image typically compresses to 1.8MB, taking 14 minutes for transmission instead of 35 over a 28.8kbps line. "We tested BitJazz's technology and confirmed its effectiveness by reducing a 5MB TIFF Eyewire graphic image to 1.5MB with no degradation whatsoever. BitJazz achieved an average compression ratio of 2.5:1--the highest available lossless compression available for photo-quality images," said Michael Kleper of The Kleper Report on Digital Publishing at http://www.printerport.com/kdp/. "BitJazz's compression technology fulfills two basic production needs: it reduces the size of files so they occupy less storage space, and it makes them more compact for faster network transmission. Both of these benefits are of considerable value in a digital production workflow, and most serious digital imaging professionals can more than justify the investment in this technology since it easily pays for itself by saving considerable processing time and storage space." Wide-ranging Color Model Support The PhotoJazz plug-in is available for Power Macintosh™ and Windows (95/98/NT) using completely interoperable files and offers fuller Photoshop color mode support than all other file formats except Photoshop's native file format, PSD. PhotoJazz supports all high-quality image modes (RGB, CMYK, grayscale, duotone, Lab, multichannel) with any number of alpha and spot-color channels, plus thumbnails, ICC profiles, and other non-image data. Finally, PhotoJazz uses state-of-the-art CRC data-integrity verification to detect transmission and disk errors. For further details, please consult the online table at http://www.bitjazz.com/en/products/photojazz/analysis.php. BitJazz SDK BitJazz has also announced that it is immediately shipping its cross-platform BitJazz™ Software Development Kit (SDK). The SDK enables developers to include PhotoJazz support in their Windows and Mac OS software, providing them with access to the most powerful lossless photo-quality image compressor on the market. The cross-platform SDK includes all PhotoJazz interface files, working ANSI C sample code, and thorough documentation for both platforms. BitJazz relieves developers of all internal file-format concerns, yet allows the PhotoJazz image to be embedded in a file or memory. Plug-ins are small due to the fact that the PhotoJazz engine is a separate shared library. Pricing and Availability All products are currently available at http://www.bitjazz.com/. The PhotoJazz reader/evaluation copy is free. PhotoJazz Pro, which sells for $99, has full write capability. PhotoJazz Lite, priced at $49, outputs RGB only.
For the SDK, under the basic developer license, developers can incorporate
the PhotoJazz interface in their software free of charge,
and their users can read PhotoJazz images free of charge.
For more information on developer licensing of Photojazz, email partner About BitJazz BitJazz Inc. is emerging as the new market leader in lossless image compression technology and development for key digital imaging markets, including electronic publishing, graphic design, photography, and other digital arts as well as the medical, satellite and communications sectors. The company was founded by Andreas Wittenstein and Jim Lloyd, key developers of Pixar's Toy Story™ CD-ROMs in addition to Quick RenderMan™, Intuit's MacInTax™, and Speech Systems' Phonetic Engine™. For additional company and product information, please visit http://www.bitjazz.com/. BitJazz and PhotoJazz are trademarks of BitJazz Inc. All product and service names profiled herein are trademarks and service marks of their respective companies. Trademarks and registered trademarks previously cited are hereby recognized and acknowledged. PhotoJazz US patent pending.
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