Europe's first commercially-available HD DVD title was produced using Sonic's Scenarist advanced interactive authoring and CineVision high-definition encoding solutions. Developed by authoring studio Imagion AG of Trierweiler, Germany (www.imagion.de), the title is built around the computer-animated 3D short Elephants Dream, which was created by an international creative team led by Ton Roosendaal, chairman of Blender Foundation. Elephants Dream is notable not only as the first HD DVD title made under production conditions in Europe, but also as a showcase for the visual quality and advanced interactivity of HD DVD. Special features on the title include on-the-fly menus and scene selection, picture-in-picture, and an interactive side-by-side comparison of HD and SD video quality.

Elephants Dream was authored with Scenarist HD DVD Edition and encoded with Sonic's mastering-level CineVision encoding system, which offers full support for all three HD video codecs (AVC, VC-1, and MPEG-2) while meeting the image-quality demands of major motion picture studios and high-end authoring facilities.

Sonic will be demonstrating Scenarist and CineVision at the upcoming IBC convention (stand #7.738) in Amsterdam, September 8-12.