New digital grading and creative color correction tools available for discreet users redefine industry workflow

Budapest - March 24, 2000 - Colorfront today announced the release of color*star, the industry-first software plug-in for digital film grading, advanced selective color correction and creative look-creation, running on discreet's high-end special effects and editing systems.

Appreciating the recent convergence of film, HDTV, and video, and fostering the revolution of Digital Film Mastering, Colorfront dedicated itself to massively contribute to the development and standardization of the new workflow based on the 1080@24p universal mastering format. The premier appearance of their commitment is the introduction of color*star, a software plug-in for Discreet inferno*, flame*, flint*, effect* on O2, fire*, and smoke* systems.

"As loyal Discreet users, we have grown to appreciate the open architecture, incredible speed and creative possibilities these systems offer," said Mark Jaszberenyi, Founder and CEO of Colorfront. "During our work in the film and video industry, we identified an opportunity to enhance color grading and color correction inside inferno*, flame*, smoke*, and fire*. We created color*star for digital artists to extend their current capabilities beyond dedicated, hardware-based color correctors. The critical task of film grading and color correction for creating a specific look is best served by having everything in one place, right at your fingertips. With color*star - this is now reality!"

color*star is the groundbreaking plug-in that makes it possible for artists to turn their existing systems into a fully flexible real-time color corrector. The tools inside color*star were previously available only on dedicated hardware units, but now they are integrated into an open system. This increases overall facility productivity by eliminating the inconvenience of shuffling projects between telecine and effects rooms.

"We are pleased with Colorfront's developments as their product demonstrates the value that the sparks* plug-ins bring to Discreet's award-winning uncompressed resolution independent effects and editing systems," said Sandra Buckingham, senior product manager-systems, for Discreet. "color*star helps to expand the toolset by providing special-purpose tools for digital film mastering and color correction, particularly at high resolutions like digital film and HDTV."

As the first product in Colorfront's Digital Film Mastering series, color*star enables users to gain access to an extensive range of professional tools while maintaining extremely high image quality at a fully optimized speed level. color*star facilitates the handling of log data (digital film negative) integrated with the grading process, critical for one-stop digital film lab applications.

color*star's extreme dynamic-range primary color corrector always works in a much larger colorspace than the final output, for huge highlight and shadow headroom. The automatic grading feature boosts productivity by intelligently analyzing source material and setting grading parameters accordingly, while the revolutionary ColorSafe Softclip(tm) compresses highlights and shadows with their original hue unchanged. The newly developed Modular Color Correction Architecture(tm) (MCCA) gives total flexibility to multiple secondary correction by allowing free mixing and matching of tools in order to achieve the desired look.

The real power of the color*star modular architecture shines with integrated toolset of special look-creation effects like blurs, defocus and optics glows. Chemical film processes like silver retention are digitally recreated for that sought-after look. color*star also has all the tools that are taken granted in a telecine suite to help colorists during grading, including waveform monitors, vectorscope, histogram and a resolution-independent reference store with wipe.

Pricing and Availability
color*star is immediately available for download and ordering. color*star is priced at $4,000 for effect*, flint*, $6,000 for smoke*, flame* and $8,000 for fire*, inferno*. Colorfront is offering an NAB introductory special with 25% discount on orders placed before April 30th. The fully functional watermark protected version of color*star is downloadable from Colorfront's web site at www.colorfront.com.

NAB 2000
Colorfront will be demonstrating color*star for the first time at the forthcoming NAB 2000 convention in Las Vegas. Shows will run at the sparks* demo pod of Discreet booth # S4103 at the Sands Convention Center, between 11:00am - 1:00pm on Monday, April 10 & Tuesday, April 11, and 10:00am - 11:00am on Wednesday, April 13.

About Colorfront and color*star
Colorfront, the software subsidiary of Front Media Ltd., is an upstart software development company creating professional tools for the film and video post-production industry. color*star, Colorfront's first product in its Digital Film Mastering series, is a sparks* (software plug-in) for digital grading and creative color correction of film, HDTV, and video material. Colorfront is headquartered in Budapest, Hungary and can be found on the web at www.colorfront.com.

About Discreet
Discreet, a division of Autodesk, Inc., develops systems and software for visual effects, 3D animation, editing, and production used in the creation of digital moving pictures for feature films, video, HDTV, broadcast graphics, interactive games, and the Web. Discreet products are used extensively in film and video post-production, games and multimedia, broadcast graphics, programming, and on-air events coverage. For more information, contact any Authorized Discreet Reseller, call Discreet at 800-869-3504, or visit www.discreet.com. Autodesk shares are traded on the Nasdaq national market under the symbol ADSK.

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