Deluxe, a world leader in technology and media services for filmed and home entertainment, today announced that it has acquired Digital Video Compression Center (DVCC) from Matsushita Electric Industrial Company, Ltd. (Panasonic).

The entire DVCC business unit will be transferred to Deluxe Digital Studios (DDS), creating the industry's largest provider of DVD compression and authoring services. Specific terms of the deal were not disclosed.

This acquisition brings together two of the industry's leading DVD compression and authoring facilities under one umbrella. DDS and DVCC already share many of the same attributes as both are perceived by the Hollywood studios as delivering very high quality compression and authoring services for major DVD movie releases. DVCC has been in existence since the birth of DVD and was a key player in the format's development and market launch activities that took place in the mid-to-late 1990s. While DVCC's past focus has been strictly DVD compression and authoring services, the group now joins Deluxe, which offers a full range of DVD production services including compression, audio encoding, authoring, menu design, multimedia development, bonus material production, replication, packaging and distribution.

Most of the DVCC employees will become employees of Deluxe and move to DDS' new facility in Burbank, CA, in August 2004. Ron Martin, the senior staff member of DVCC, will become Vice President of Post Production for DDS. Martin, commenting on the transfer, said, "It's rare that two organizations such as Deluxe and DVCC share the same core values of production excellence and customer satisfaction. The front end services of Deluxe, combined with the additional talent and resources of DVCC, offer our clients a tremendous value and capacity that is unparalleled in the industry and delivered without compromising service."

"DDS was interested in expanding its compression and authoring business and DVCC was the perfect choice because they match our production capability for major DVD releases -- a segment of the market that we focus much of our energy on," said Robert Seidel, DDS division head. "Demand for the highest quality compression and authoring services keeps growing as picture quality and disc features continue to drive the DVD market, and DVCC has as much experience in these categories as anyone in the industry."

Deluxe is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Rank Group offering a broad range of entertainment industry services and technologies to an international client base. Services include DVD software and content production, large volume DVD and videocassette manufacturing and packaging, physical and digital asset management, content repurposing and conversion, digital intermediate production, film laboratory services and release printing, and worldwide distribution and fulfillment services.

From BusinessWire