SAN RAFAEL, Calif., Feb. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Autodesk, Inc. today announced the shipping of a new product, Autodesk Incinerator 1.0, which increases the real-time performance and interactivity of Autodesk's Discreet Lustre digital color grading system. The Discreet Lustre system has been used to realize "look and feel" ideas for numerous feature films, including King Kong, Oliver Twist and Alexander, as well as television commercials for Ford Mustang, Best Buy and Target.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050415/SFF034LOGO )

Post-production facility Shortcut (Denmark) has already used the Autodesk Incinerator and Discreet Lustre systems on five feature films:

* A Soap: A Danish-Swedish tragicomic love story produced by Nimbus Film, that has been selected for the Competition Program of the 56th Berlin International Film Festival * Den rette And: A Danish comedy produced by M&M Productions * Johnny Was: An Irish, UK and Danish comedy co-production with Irish political tones * Lotto: A Danish comedy produced by Nordisk Film Production * Tempelriddernes Skat: A Danish family adventure produced by M&M Productions

Shortcut's digital film workflow also includes Autodesk's Discreet Flame visual effects systems and Autodesk 3ds Max animation software.

Ivan Schmidt, technical director at Shortcut, said, "The combination of Autodesk Incinerator and Discreet Lustre systems has given us a whole new level of interactivity. We often have live sessions with cinematographers, during which we digitally explore a film's colors, textures and lighting. Using the Incinerator and Discreet Lustre systems together, we're able to wrap up the sessions faster, often coming out with finalized footage that truly captures the director's and cinematographer's vision."

Schmidt added: "We were having a hard time finding a solution that could match our stringent requirements for sophisticated color grading and real-time interaction. When we saw Incinerator with Discreet Lustre, we immediately knew that it was the system to fit our needs. This combination is far more powerful than any other digital color grading solution on the market."

The Incinerator system uses computing cluster technology to provide real- time capabilities for complex primary and secondary color correction, as well as real-time visual effects processing at high-definition and 2K resolutions and accelerated 4K processing. Primary color correction involves altering the entire image, while secondary color correction isolates and alters part of an image, such as the color of a car or the hue of a sky.

The Incinerator system is a modular solution that can be shared by multiple Discreet Lustre systems in a networked workgroup environment, thereby providing post-production facilities with a more efficient way of allocating resources within their production workflows. The Incinerator system is compatible with the newly released Linux-based Discreet Lustre 2.7 digital color grading system. It is not compatible with older versions of the Discreet Lustre system. For additional information on the Autodesk Incinerator and Discreet Lustre systems, please visit http://www.autodesk.com/lustre.

About Autodesk

Autodesk, Inc. is wholly focused on ensuring that great ideas are turned into reality. With seven million users, Autodesk is the world's leading software and services company for the manufacturing, building, infrastructure, wireless data services and media and entertainment fields. Autodesk's solutions help customers create, manage and share their data and digital assets more effectively. As a result, customers turn ideas into competitive advantage by becoming more productive, streamlining project efficiency and maximizing profits.

Founded in 1982, Autodesk is headquartered in San Rafael, California. For additional information about Autodesk, please visit http://www.autodesk.com/.

NOTE: Autodesk, Discreet, 3ds Max, Flame, Incinerator and Lustre are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc./Autodesk Canada Co. in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names or trademarks belong to their respective holders.

Contact: Roohi Saeed, 514-954-7296

Email: roohi.saeed@autodesk.com

CONTACT: Roohi Saeed of Autodesk, +1-514-954-7296, or
roohi.saeed@autodesk.com

Web site: http://www.autodesk.com/