Canopus Corporation today announced a new line of professional realtime MPEG encoding and DVD authoring solutions for DVD producers, multimedia professionals and video enthusiasts. The first products to be released in this series are the MPEGPRO MVR and the MPEGPRO EMR. Both products feature advanced pre-filtering and variable bit rate encoding capabilities to provide excellent quality MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video even at low bit rates, making it a perfect solution for preparing video for CD, DVD or network transmission. While the MPEGPRO MVR is a PCI-based board, the MPEGPRO EMR is an external unit that connects to the computer through the USB-1 or USB-2 port and lets users create high-quality MPEG streams, even on a laptop computer. Both MPEGPRO MVR and MPEGPRO EMR feature advanced image filtering, such as 3D digital noise reduction, 3D frame synchronizer, line time base corrector and 3D Y/C separation (NTSC only), to provide enhanced image quality. The MPEGPRO line supports both Main Profile at Main Level MPEG-2 (MP@ML) and I-frame-only encoding. When using MP@ML, the MPEGPRO MVR and MPEGPRO EMR deliver the high-quality video and audio MPEG-2 output required by today's video professionals. MP@ML features true IBP frame format, which provides the highest-quality video at the lowest bandwidth. In addition, MPEGPRO MVR and MPEGPRO EMR's variable bitrate capability (from 1Mbps to 15Mbps) is one of the most effective techniques used to maintain video quality while reducing file size.

With composite and S-Video inputs, the MPEGPRO Series is scalable up to full-D1 resolution with NTSC and PAL format support. On the audio front, this series supports MPEG Layer 2 audio compression.

The MPEGPRO Series features the company's family of MPEG tools that provide powerful MPEG encoding and editing capabilities. Users encode MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 files in realtime directly from DV and analog sources using Canopus's MediaCruise control software, which features an easy-to-use GUI for effortless capture and encoding. Canopus is also including MpegCutter, a handy MPEG-editing tool for basic editing tasks. In MPEGPRO EMR, MpegExplorer for advanced desktop search and preview of MPEG files and MpegRe-encoder for high-speed conversions of high-bitrate MPEG files to lower-bitrate files, is also included. The award-winning Ulead DVD Workshop SE is also included, bringing a rich palette of DVD authoring tools to MPEGPRO Series users.

Pricing and Availability

MPEGPRO MVR and MPEGPRO EMR will be available this month through Canopus authorized dealers and system integrators for a suggested retail price of $499 each.