Rivergate Software Inc. - makers of DVDAfterEdit

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 !

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.

Rivergate Software is pleased to announce the release of DDPAfterBurner, a new stand-alone utility for managing DDP Images on DLT (Digital Linear Tape). DDPAfterBurner is priced at $199 as a stand-alone utility, and at $99 for owners of HDAfterEdit using a coupon available here.

DDPAfterBurner (DDPAB) is a functional demo version that can be purchased and registered from within the program, and is available for download here.

The ATTO UL5D, ATTO 4.20 driver, Mac Pro, and Leopard 10.5.1 are working fine with the all four of our tape drives connected at the same time, including the DLT8000, on both DVDAfterEdit and the new tape utility which we are developing.

Microsoft have updated their HD DVD HDi "Jumpstart" package. Notable improvements include better feedback from the HDi validation tool, and network connectivity support in the simulator. The package includes documentation for HDi programming, validator and emulator utilities, some simple code examples and tools for creating ACA files etc.

Rivergate Software is extending the Summer Offer to existing DVDAfterEdit Mastering Edition owners, to upgrade to HDAfterEdit 1.0 for $349, until September 30, 2007. At that time the price will increase to $449. The upgrade includes access to the beta releases, of course.

We are now able to format HDDVD Standard Content single-layer projects to UDF 2.5 disc image, and are beginning to test playing them in the Apple DVD Player, and other players. One serious problem is that the Apple Player won't play even standard content images created by other authoring systems, and PowerDVD on Windows and set top boxes won't play images created by DVD Studio Pro.