Powerful, easy to use multimedia object management

Now both Mac and Windows users have everything they need to organize, share and protect their media files for a lifetime.

iView Multimedia is launching a Windows version of its award-winning digital cataloguing software. The existing, powerful, Mac-based software from iView has had rave reviews from users over the last four years, and with the launch of the Windows version, both professionals and home users now have a way to manage, edit, protect and share their ever-growing inventory of digital files including photos, videos, graphics and music clips whether on a Windows PC or a Mac.

The company is also further expanding the iView product family with a new version of the Mac product and more enhancements are planned to the entire range.

According to IDC/Infotrends, the market for digital cameras is growing at 16% per year, and is forecast to reach 51 million units in 2007. There is a growing demand from these users alone to be able to manage the wealth of digital images being created and saved onto personal computers. Photos, sounds, movies and graphics are just some of the many types of files filling our hard drives. iView Media is the essential companion for all owners and users of digital media. It enables effective management, storage, back-up as well as creative output via websites, slideshows and contact sheets.

The initial product – iView Media - is aimed at anyone who wants to catalogue their digital assets at home or in a small business. This includes those who use their digital camera for fun – for example anyone who wants to organise their images such as family snapshots, holiday or wedding snaps on their home PC. It also allows them to catalogue other files such as sounds (MP3 and other formats) and videos. A version aimed at professionals such as photographers, web site and graphic designers, illustrators, and musicians will be launched in the next few weeks.

iView Media benefits from the same sleek functionality as its more heavy-weight
predecessor, the Eddy award winning iView MediaPro for Macintosh.

Features include:-
• ‘Drag and drop’ for an easy import
• Simple annotation and categorisation
• Sorting by simple characteristics including timeline, event, and content
• Powerful, renowned cataloging capabilities - makes the organisation and retrieval of photos, movies, sounds and other media straightforward, fast and logical.
• Inbuilt one-touch editing tools – allows users to adjust colour, contrast, crop and resize photos without the need for a separate application.
• Slideshows and contact sheets - make sharing photos, movies, sounds and other media with friends and family fun and easy.
• Catalogs can always be viewed, even when the media is stored offline, for example on a CD. Use of thumbnails minimises size of catalogs.
• Simple HTML page creation
• Flexible labelling function - gives text annotations, batch renaming and embedded metadata.
• Ability to load and view over 70 different file formats
• Back-up feature - means precious photos and media files are safely protected.

Mike Vieyra, CEO, iView Multimedia, said; “iView Media allows anyone to manage their rich media files such as photos, music, video and fonts on hard disks, CDs, servers and the worldwide web. It does this by creating catalogues and saving them on disk. iView Media for Windows makes iView a truly cross-platform solution. The new product also introduces iView’s new elegant interface, which will also be making an appearance on the Mac platform with the latest release of the software. With iView, you can catalogue it, save it, label it, share it, display it, enhance it and protect it.”

Comments from users of iView MediaPro: iView Media’s big brother.

Tony Quinn of Red Door. “iView has fit right into our workflow, and trimmed days off our schedules,“When you consider we have a throughput of hundreds of VR movies, thousands of stills, and associated templates - this is real good news. The thing is - when a visitor browses our sites, they would never know how much of the behind the scenes work was handled by iView. (Don’t tell our clients - they’ll be looking for a discount!”).

Ahad Surooprajally, head of new technologies, Lewis
“iView not only saves so much time in cataloguing video and pictures, but also allows us to have full management control. It has certainly helped to make our multimedia services a real success, and will play a crucial role as these expand and diversify”.

Steve Stroud, Deputy Director of Photography, Los Angeles Times
“Photo editors at the Los Angeles Times have found the iView program to be indispensable for helping us display the wide range of images that come to us from around the country and around the world. It also serves as an invaluable editing tool, allowing us to click and drag photos into desired sequences or into different catalogs. We drive it hard and have yet to find a bug anywhere - another great advantage.”

Randy Miller, Co-creator of MYST and RIVEN
“I’ve always preferred bits to atoms. By my Mac started looking like my photo shoebox - stuff everywhere. I don’t need overkill. I simply need an easy-to-use, powerful, “shoebox” organizer for my photorealistic renderings, hi-res textures, and even digital photos of my family vacation. iView is my solution.

Brian Ling, Editorial Systems Support, Gruner and Jahr
“iView gives our users a powerful, simple and effective way to view large numbers of pictures, select the required pictures and present them to the editors. “

Notes to Editors
iView Multimedia is a software development and publishing company based in the UK. It publishes media asset management software that allows users to organise and catalogue rich media assets such as photos, digital camera files, graphics, movies, sounds, MP3s, fonts and more. The software runs on Mac OS9, Mac OS X and Windows platforms (98/ME/2000/XP), and is used by home users, hobbyists and professionals alike.

From the very first release of the product in 1996 to the present, the company has attracted a reputation as the market-leading innovator in its field. It continues to enhance this reputation, and its products are widely recognised as best-of-breed. More than 600,000 units have been shipped to-date. In December 2002 View was awarded a MacWorld Eddy for “product excellence and outstanding technological innovation.”

iView is distributed via the Internet and through local distributors and retailers in the US, UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland Japan and Australasia.

iView Media for both Windows and Macintosh retails at £19.95 (including VAT) in the UK and will be available before Easter from the iView Multimedia website.
iView MediaPro for Macintosh has a recommended retail price of £65 (including VAT) and is available from resellers and retailers and from the iView Multimedia website.