MainConcept Announces Two New H.264/AVC Video Transcoding Technologies Accelerated by NVIDIA GPUs With CUDA Technology

AACHEN, Germany, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- MainConcept GmbH, a wholly-owned subsidiary of DivX, Inc. (Nasdaq: DIVX) and one of the world's premier providers of video and audio codecs and software development kits (SDKs) for the consumer, broadcast and professional markets, announced today the release of new H.264/AVC encoding technologies, which allow creative professionals and software developers to encode video into the immensely popular H.264/AVC format. By offloading many of the processor intensive video encoding tasks from the CPU to NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs), the MainConcept H.264/AVC Encoder provides up to 10x faster performance for HD video compared with CPU-only encoding and reduces CPU utilization to as low as 20%, freeing up the system for other computing tasks.  Two new MainConcept H.264/AVC Encoding technologies, built on the NVIDIA CUDA™ massively parallel computing architecture, are now available:

• New CUDA-based H.264/AVC plug-in for MainConcept's popular Reference 2.1 stand-alone transcoding application for Windows® and Macintosh®, which provides production houses a fast solution for the transcoding of many formats into H.264/AVC, with pre-sets for popular playback devices including iPod/iPhone/iPad, PSP, Blu-ray Disc, and others.
• New Codec Suite 5 plug-in for Adobe® Premiere Pro CS5 that offers H.264/AVC encoding from the timeline, with full CUDA hardware acceleration, so video editors can finish their projects faster.

Additionally, MainConcept's CUDA H.264/AVC SDK, shipping since June 2010, enables developers to add GPU accelerated video encoding to their own applications.

The MainConcept CUDA H.264/AVC Encoder improves performance by using NVIDIA GPU acceleration for encoding/transcoding. It enables transcoding from MPEG-2, VC-1 and AVC elementary streams or raw frames into H.264/AVC Baseline and Main profiles.  MainConcept's CUDA H.264/AVC encoding solutions work seamlessly with the 200+ million NVIDIA graphics solutions supporting the CUDA architecture, including NVIDIA Quadro, Tesla and GeForce, product lines.  

"Video professionals and developers alike understand that time is money and thus being able to encode video faster into H.264/AVC, the premier format for the next decade, is paramount," said Muzaffer Beygirci, managing director, MainConcept. "We have spent considerable effort optimizing our H.264/AVC technology offerings to take full advantage of the NVIDIA CUDA architecture and GPU acceleration, and continue to offer video professionals and developers this dramatically accelerated video encoding with MainConcept quality and compatibility baked right in."

"MainConcept's CUDA-based H.264/AVC video encoding solutions really showcase the incredible power of the GPU that NVIDIA offers," said Andrew Cresci, general manager, vertical market solutions, NVIDIA. "These latest, CUDA-based H.264/AVC encoding technologies are excellent solutions for developers and video professionals who are under constant pressure to produce high quality products in less time."

The MainConcept H.264/AVC encoder SDK and the Codec Suite 5 H.264/AVC encoder plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 are all available today from the MainConcept online shop at www.mainconcept.com  and are compatible with any NVIDIA graphics solution supporting the CUDA compute capability 1.0 or higher. For a complete list, please visit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_gpus.html.  The MainConcept H.264/AVC plug-in for Reference 2.1 will be available shortly.

Attending IBC 2010 in Amsterdam?  Please schedule a meeting with your MainConcept sales professional or simply drop by the MainConcept booth 2. C50, to see a demonstration of our new CUDA accelerated H.264/AVC encoding solutions in addition to the rest of MainConcept's renown audio and video codec products.  

About MainConcept

MainConcept GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of DivX, Inc. (NASDAQ: DIVX), is one of the world's premier providers of high-quality audio and video codec solutions for consumer and professional applications. Many of the world's best consumer electronics and computer manufacturers, handheld device makers, and creative software providers rely on MainConcept embedded codec solutions to deliver a superb audio and video experience to their customers, in virtually all popular consumer formats.  MainConcept also provides comprehensive encoding and decoding solutions to the broadcast and professional video industry in the form of codecs for integration into creative software suites as well as complete after-market plug-in solutions for adding new video format support into popular Non-Linear Editing (NLE) software packages. We are MainConcept – The Codec People.

About DivX

DivX, Inc. is a leading digital media company that enables consumers to enjoy a high-quality video experience across any kind of device. DivX creates, distributes and licenses digital video technologies that span the "three screens" comprising today's consumer media environment—the PC, the television and mobile devices. Over 300 million DivX devices have shipped into the market worldwide from leading consumer electronics manufacturers. DivX also offers content providers and publishers a complete solution for the distribution of secure, high-quality digital video content. Driven by a globally recognized brand and a passionate community of hundreds of millions of consumers, DivX is simplifying the video experience to enable the digital home.

On June 2, 2010, DivX, Inc. and Sonic Solutions announced a proposed merger transaction.  Sonic Solutions has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") a registration statement on Form S-4 containing a preliminary joint proxy statement/prospectus in connection with the proposed merger and both companies intend to mail a definitive joint proxy statement/prospectus and other relevant documents to Sonic and DivX shareholders following such time that the registration statement is declared effective by the SEC.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this press release that are not strictly historical in nature constitute "forward-looking statements." Such statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding DivX, Inc.'s visibility within the investment community. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause DivX and MainConcept's actual results to be materially different from historical results or from any results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors include, but are not limited to: the risk that customer use of DivX or MainConcept technologies may not grow as anticipated; the risk that anticipated market opportunities may not materialize at expected levels, or at all; the risk that DivX and MainConcept's activities may not result in the growth of profitable revenue; risks and uncertainties related to the maintenance and strength of the DivX and MainConcept brands; risks associated with DivX and MainConcept's ability to penetrate existing and new markets; risks regarding the effects of competition; the risk of DivX and MainConcept's dependence on its licensees and partners; risks related to the effect of intellectual property rights claims; and other factors discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of DivX's most recent report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. DivX is providing this information as of the date of this release and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. All trademarks are the property of their owners and are used for informational purposes only.

Additional Information

This press release is not a solicitation of a proxy, an offer to purchase, nor a solicitation of an offer to sell shares of Sonic Solutions, and it is not a substitute for any proxy statement or other filings that may be made with the SEC with respect to the merger.  In connection with the proposed merger, Sonic Solutions has filed a registration statement on Form S-4 containing a joint proxy statement/prospectus of Sonic Solutions and DivX. Investors and security holders are urged to carefully read the Registration Statement on Form S-4 and related joint proxy statement/prospectus and other documents filed with the SEC by Sonic Solutions and DivX, because they contain important information about Sonic Solutions, DivX and the proposed transaction, including with respect to risks and uncertainties that could delay or prevent the completion of the transaction. Such documents are available free of charge at the SEC website (www.sec.gov), from Sonic Solutions and its corporate website (www.sonic.com) or from DivX and its corporate website (www.divx.com).

Sonic Solutions, DivX and their respective directors, executive officers and other members of their management may be deemed to be soliciting proxies from shareholders of Sonic Solutions or DivX in favor of the merger. Investors and stockholders may obtain more detailed information regarding the direct and indirect interests in the merger of persons who may, under the rules of the SEC, be considered participants in the solicitation of these shareholders in connection with the merger by reading the joint proxy statement/prospectus described above. Additional information about the directors and executive officers of Sonic Solutions may be found in its definitive proxy statement filed with the SEC on October 1, 2009. Additional information about the directors and executive officers of DivX may be found in its definitive proxy statement filed with the SEC on April 20, 2010. Such documents are available free of charge at the SEC website (www.sec.gov), from Sonic Solutions and its corporate website (www.sonic.com) or from DivX and its corporate website (www.divx.com).

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SOURCE MainConcept