Zoo Digital Automates Blu-ray Disc Authoring

Zoo Digital announced the launch of its automated authoring software for producing regionalized Blu-ray Discs (BD) and its first customer for its Translation Management System.

According to the statement, following on its software tools for menu regionalization and automated authoring of DVD-Video titles, Zoo will shortly begin deployment of a similar solution for Blu-ray Disc.

The requirements that major film studios have for their Blu-ray Disc products lead to highly complex production processes. This is in part due to the complexity of the Blu-ray format and partly to the work necessary to adapt titles developed in one language to create multiple language variants. Zoo’s integrated software toolset automates the preparation of digital content including complex interactive menus, regionalization into multiple language variants, and assembly and formatting for full compliance with the Blu-ray Disc specification. This enables Zoo’s customers to produce Blu-ray titles for multiple languages more quickly and easily and at lower cost. Zoo charges a fee for each title processed and therefore recurring revenues will scale with the volume of Blu-ray titles created by the system. The system is currently being evaluated by a major Hollywood studio.

The regionalization capabilities of the Blu-ray automated authoring toolset are delivered through integration with Zoo’s Translation Management System (TMS). Zoo is pleased to announce that, following extensive trials, this system has now been deployed for a major Hollywood studio where it is beginning to be used to manage, coordinate and regionalize worldwide marketing campaigns for theatrical film releases. Zoo expects that, in due course, the system will be used by this studio’s staff on a daily basis in more than 60 territory offices. The TMS is a web-based system that is licensed on a Software-as-a-Service basis, generating recurring revenues for Zoo that scale with the total number of subscriber users.

Stuart Green, CEO of Zoo commented: “We are excited by the potential of our new automated Blu-ray authoring system as the entertainment industry continues the migration of products for worldwide publishing in high definition. It is pleasing to secure our first customer for the Translation Management System which, when used in conjunction with our other software tools, optimises production processes and will deliver operational efficiencies that we expect will result in significant savings of time and cost for our customers.”

For more information visit: www.zoodigital.com