DVDAfterEdit, and now BluStreak

Rivergate Software is proud to announce our first Blu-ray product, BluStreak Premaster, and we have moved Blu-ray sales and support to a new web location:

http://blustreak.dvdafteredit.com

We will continue support of DVDAfterEdit from this site, and please continue to post your questions and observations in the forums here.

Flash! Snow Leopard has broken support for DLT drives, but all other DVDAfterEdit functions work the same as in Leopard.

Those of you who have been following our news releases have probably noticed that BluStreak Navigator is still not released for beta testing on the web site, in contrast to our stated timeframes. Since these estimates have been overly optimistic, we are going to stop giving target dates, and instead only announce software when it is actually available for testing.

BluStreak Navigator, the Blu-ray Menu Authoring tool for Macintosh, will be released in two versions, Standard and Mastering.

BluStreak Navigator Standard, to be offered at $449, will output spec-compliant UDF 2.5 disc images that may be burned to BD-R and BD-RE and played in Blu-ray hardware or software players.

We have decided to use the all-encompassing name "BluStreak" for our pending Blu-ray Software Products. The first product will be BluStreak Navigator, targeted for release by the end of the year.

DVDAfterEdit 3.0.5d3 Mastering Edition is available for download. This fixes an error in the placement of the AVDP (Anchor Volume Descriptor Pointer) at the end of the disc when building a DDP tape image (AKA Plant Direct) for CSS encryption. (It was misaligned in the sector). This error does not normally affect playability, but prevented Macrovision RipGuard from being applied.

Enough talk about what we are going to do, now is the time to actually do it. We are now working with a top Blu-ray authoring house, and I have brought in my former development partner at a previous company to work with us on Blu-ray software. Our first product will be a stand-alone BD pre-mastering solution.

During the tumultuous events of the past few weeks, we have been evaluating our software development efforts, the potential marketplace, and how we could best fill what is now perceived as a void in Blu-ray authoring tools for the majority of DVD authors.

We must admit that the recent announcements about most of Hollywood going to Blu-ray exclusively caught us by surprise. At the same time, Hollywood studios have never been our customers. Blu-ray (and HD DVD, for that matter), has only a few hundred titles out. ( Some of them are really bad movies ! ) Whereas Amazon has well over 100,000 standard definition DVD titles for sale.

Our support forums and support emails have encountered some Eclipse and Pre-Mastering errors that have been intermittent and difficult to pin down. Foremost among these is the Eclipse error "VOBU length and number of sectors disagree". Blame has been pointed at I/O errors with either SCSI DLT or DVD-R, but our research indicates that it is more likely an authoring error.