Contents Hot!
With the news last month that Ensequence signed a ten year deal with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (SPHE) following the recent win of Blue-ray over the HD DVD format, the company is in a hot position to extend their on-Q Create suite for Blu-ray Java (BD-J) for platform development.
While the Java (no pun) portion of BD-J offers increased interactivity options for developers, the learning curve could pose an obstacle for some and slow roll-out of platforms. Ensequence claims to have removed this hurtle with their software authoring tool which affords a drag and drop metaphor and is fully compatible with Photoshop, the industry standard for graphics development.
"The Ensequence on-Q Create suite has drastically reduced the complexity of authoring Java content on Blu-ray Disc titles, enabling content developers to create compelling, rich and dynamic interactive experiences in a WYSIWYG environment - and in drastically reduced timeframes," said Don Eklund, SPHE's EVP of Advanced Technology.
With the different Blu-ray players on the market, compatibility of the BD-J implementation is vital. According to the company, their on-Q suite enables a seamless integration of next-gen features such as;
• Advanced picture-in-picture functionality (e.g. director's commentaries overlaid on top of the video)
• Purchase functionality
• Bonus content, notification about sequels and more
As a long time user of Vegas Pro and Sound Forge, both now SONY products, I would be curious if that NLE and audio editor will have hooks out to the on-Q suite in future releases for a total production solution?
authoring environment
Another question will be the price point for the on-Q suite which I hope will be affordable for smaller content producers to leverage new and existing content. Unlike Neulion which, requires their own proprearty set-top box, the Ensequence solutions are platform agnostic which is the only sane approach in what is already a confusion time for producers not to mention consumers.
To road test the SONY / on-Q Create®, go to the Trial Request page
