NEW YORK, Jul 17, 2002 (BUSINESS WIRE) --

New Release of cleaner for Apple's Advanced, UNIX-based Platform Offers Critical Performance, User-Interface Enhancements, New Tools, and Expanded Set of Industry-Leading Codecs

Discreet, a division of Autodesk Inc. (Nasdaq:ADSK), today announced that cleaner(TM) 6 for Mac will be available this fall. Discreet's cleaner software continues to be an industry standard for creating streaming video and audio for multimedia and the web through high quality content mastering for all major digital media formats.

cleaner 6 for Mac demonstrates Discreet's unwavering commitment to provide market-leading content mastering solutions with support for Apple's QuickTime 6 and MPEG-4, the next standard for multimedia delivery across networks, platforms and wireless-based devices. Discreet will showcase cleaner 6 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York this week at Macworld Expo (booth # 1737).

"Discreet continues to show its strong commitment to the Mac community with cleaner 6 for Mac, a reliable and comprehensive Content Mastering application, optimized and enhanced for Apple's ultramodern operating system," said Paul Lypaczewski, general manager, Discreet and executive vice president of Autodesk, Inc. "Discreet's goal is to provide its customers the tools they need to satisfy the increasing market demand for compelling visual content for web delivery, DVDs and CDs."

"Mac OS X and QuickTime deliver the power, stability and high-performance features that content creators demand from an efficient media authoring environment," said Ron Okamoto, Apple's vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. "We're delighted with Discreet's commitment to Mac OS X and cleaner 6 should be a tremendous solution for media artists who want to create the highest quality streaming content in QuickTime."

    New features in cleaner 6

Expanding upon cleaner 5.1, released earlier this year, cleaner 6 for Mac will adopt many more exciting features from Mac OS X's Aqua user interface for smoother interaction. New watch folders, drag and drop capabilities and nested settings will streamline workflow and allow customers to complete projects with greater efficiency. Taking full advantage of Mac OS X's true memory protection, preemptive multi-tasking and symmetric multiprocessing when running on the dual processor Power Mac G4, cleaner 6 will deliver blazing performance gains, making streaming media encoding easier and faster. cleaner 6 for Mac will also continue support for QuickTime and enable multimedia designers to publish in the most up-to-date and popular streaming formats.

Discreet has optimized cleaner 6 for Mac to leverage the power of the G4-processor and make workflow and project delivery faster. As more and more companies begin to stream internal communications via the web, cleaner 6 will remain at the forefront of media-encoding expertise. Discreet's streaming software line of products includes -- cleaner 6, cleaner central(TM), and cleaner(TM) streaming studio. For more information about Discreet's encoding and streaming media products go to: www.discreet.com/products/.

    Pricing and Availability

cleaner 6 for Mac is expected to be available in North America in the Fall of 2002 for an SRP of US $599. Upgrade price will be US $179. Customers who purchase cleaner 5.1 for Mac from local resellers or the Discreet e-store will receive a free upgrade to cleaner 6 for Mac when it ships. The Discreet e-store is located at www.discreet.com/purchase.

    About Discreet

Discreet empowers moving media professionals to realize the visual experience, transforming their most evocative and ambitious visions into reality. Its range of award-winning systems and software is developed for digital media creation, management and delivery -- across all disciplines from visual effects and editing to animation, game development, web and interactive. Discreet is based in Montreal, Quebec and is a division of Autodesk, Inc., the world's leading design and digital media creation, management, and distribution company. Product and corporate information is located on the Internet at www.discreet.com.

Note to Editors: Discreet is a division of Autodesk, Inc. Discreet, cleaner, cleaner streaming studio and cleaner central are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc. /Autodesk Canada Inc. in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.

CONTACT:          Discreet Public Relations
                  Kevin G Clark, 415/547-2457 
                  kevin.g.clark@autodesk.com
                  or
                  Access Communications
                  Lindsay Stewart, 415/844-6217
                  lstewart@accesspr.com

URL:              http://www.businesswire.com
Today's News On The Net - Business Wire's full file on the Internet
with Hyperlinks to your home page.

Copyright (C) 2002 Business Wire.  All rights reserved.