UK Authoring Firm Revs up BD-J

London-based compression and authoring facility Eyeframe has started to use Kaleidoscope software to enrich its Blu-ray titles with user-friendly entertaining features. The first titles are expected to come out this summer and, according to Kaleidoscope creator sofatronic, "will prove how cost-effective BD-J programming can be with such a rapid development tool."

Christos Glaridis, Director of Eyeframe said, "We wanted to start offering our clients added value BD-J features to their Blu-rays, as well as increased marketing opportunities using BD-Live. Furthermore we wanted to offer these services solely from our London facility without using a third party and have found that working with sofatronic using their Kaleidoscope platform enables Eyeframe to achieve this."

This cooperative venture was made possible by ROM Data who has added sofatronic Kaleidoscope to their range of Blu-ray products to complete the suite of available tools for Blu-ray authoring. As the leading digital media specialist and solutions provider in the UK, ROM Data will offer all the different versions of Kaleidoscope with upgradeable offers too.

"After some considerable time spent researching BD-J and BD Live production tools, we decided to add sofatronic Kaleidoscope to our product offering because of its comprehensive and powerful feature set," said Chris Sadler, Product Manager at ROM Data Ltd. "We look forward to working with sofatronic in promoting the exciting possibilites available to authoring facilties and end users through creating and viewing titles built on BD-J and BD Live architecture."

Content owners are beginning to realize the need to move from basic HDMV discs to advanced BD-Live enabled titles to entice consumers; and authoring houses like Eyeframe are taking the first steps to familiarize themselves with the only available platform on the market that delivers a GUI interface and template-based production workflow for Blu-ray.

"We are very excited to be cooperating with the likes ROM Data to improve service and support within the UK as we believe that they are definitely the first address for digital tools and solutions", says Dieter Schwengler, who oversees the Business Development in Europe for sofatronic.