LAS VEGAS, Apr 8, 2002 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Celebrating a decade of innovation, Discreet, a division of Autodesk, Inc. (Nasdaq:ADSK), is showcasing a broad array of high-impact advances to its software and systems at NAB 2002, the world's leading conference and exhibition for the broadcast, post-production and media communications industries. Enhancements range from integrated and distributed workflow releases to significant architectural modifications that offer unparalleled new features and capabilities to clients. All advancements extend Discreet's proven return on investment and competitive advantage to post production and broadcast facilities, and will be demonstrated alongside Discreet's award-winning portfolio of visual effects, non-linear editing, animation, streaming and infrastructure products.

"At NAB, Discreet is bringing to market major evolutionary releases that underscore our ongoing commitment to delivering superior value to clients, " said Paul Lypaczewski, Discreet general manager and executive vice president, Autodesk, Inc. "From creative expression and productivity to compelling workflow, Discreet empowers moving media professionals to realize the visual experience across the digital media spectrum."

    Visual Effects and Finishing Systems

Discreet is presenting technology demonstrations of its Academy Award-winning inferno 5, flame 8 and flint 8 systems. Making their debut at NAB 2002, significant software architecture modifications have been made to dramatically augment workflow and functionality by offering digital artists compelling new and enhanced features, including mixed resolution support, extended editing capabilities, a unified animation channel and background rendering on Linux. Based on Discreet's commitment to delivering compelling evolutionary improvements, inferno and flame continue to be the definitive tools digital artists select to transform their vision into reality.

    Effects, Editing and Desktop Compositing

Current releases of inferno 4.6, flame 7.6 and flint 7.6 will be demonstrated with eye-catching film and television work, revealing many of the more than 100 user-based enhancements and features that exemplify Discreet's continued investment in its award-winning product line. smoke 5 and fire 5 non-linear editing and finishing systems offer real-time versatile, SD, HD, film and digital cinema interactivity with new editorial and effects enhancements, OMFI support, as well as true 2K 24p real-time playback. As the digital cinema market continues to gain traction, artists will find the real-time film support of fire, including 4K x 3K images and 12-bit color depth, a perfect environment for real-time activity.

    combustion 2

Discreet's latest version 2 release of combustion software with its powerful motion graphics and visual effects software solution for Macintosh and Windows platforms features a new 2D particle system, new schematic workflow, improved performance with OpenGL support, new high-speed 2D rendering, and new film-specific tools and Look Up Tables (LUTs) support. In addition, gmask support extends the current integration with Discreet's effects and editing systems.

    INFRASTRUCTURE SOLUTIONS

backdraft 5, the latest release of Discreet's systems infrastructure and background media management product, offers clients highly efficient time- and cost-savings by enabling considerable workflow advantages. It offloads the digitizing, archiving and set-up of projects that can take up to 30 percent of an artist's suite time. New to backdraft 5 is HD digitizing and archiving support; control of multiple VTRs; new user interface and job completion triggers including paging, cell phone and email notification. Also, with the launch of Switchable Storage for its effects and editing systems, Discreet will offer an extended workflow environment for its stone and wire storage solutions. Working in tandem, backdraft 5 and Switchable Storage will help artists and editors achieve greater efficiency and free the suite for creative experimentation and more billable creative functions, rather than administrative tasks.

    STREAMING and ENCODING SOLUTIONS

Discreet announces cleaner streaming studio, bringing together -- in one package -- the combined solutions of cleaner live, cinestream and cleaner, its award-winning multi-format streaming and encoding software. Together, these three products will offer streaming media professionals all the tools they need to capture, web-cast, edit and stream content for interactive, on-demand delivery. Recently shipping, cleaner central is Discreet's scalable and automated content mastering system. Operating on standard Windows-based workstations and servers, cleaner central software automates the process of mastering content to the Web, DVD, and other digital delivery media, enabling efficient, distributed and fault-tolerant client-server authoring, encoding and publishing for enterprise-level projects. cleaner streaming studio, cleaner central and cleaner 5 are tuned for the varied requirements of today's media professionals who regularly face tight deadlines, limited budgets and massive volumes of content to be encoded and streamed.

    About Discreet

Discreet empowers moving media professionals to realize the visual experience, and transform 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.

Discreet is a division of Autodesk, Inc. Discreet, inferno, flame, flint, smoke, fire, combustion, backdraft, stone, wire, cinestream, cleaner and cleaner central are 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. (c)Copyright 2002, Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.

CONTACT:          Discreet Public Relations
                  Kevin G Clark, 415/547-2457
                  kevin.g.clark@autodesk.com
                  or
                  Access Communications
                  Sarah Bessette, 917/522-3504 or 917/375-5613
                  sarah@accesspr.com

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