Digital and OptImage Align to Offer Interactive Television Application
Development System

Intermedia, San Francisco -- February 7, 1995 -- Digital Equipment
Corporation and OptImage today announced they are working collaboratively
to create the industry's first comprehensive interactive television
application development system. The system, available this summer, will
include the complete set of tools necessary to develop and test
interactive television applications for public and private networks.

OptImage will sell the complete system, so that developers can rely on a
single supplier for all of the hardware and software required for
interactive television application development. Developers will also
benefit from working with one source for all of their training, support,
update and maintenance needs. Gail Wellington, vice president of marketing
and sales at OptImage, elaborates, "With this agreement, we are empowering
interactive television application developers. By providing all the
hardware and software tools that developers need, we enable them to spend
their time on creative content development and not equipment procurement
and compatibility issues."

The interactive television application development system consists of the
following components: OptImage's MediaMogul authoring, conversion and
simulation tools; a software module from Digital enabling users to make
server calls from MediaMogul applications; Digital's application
development media server; a DAVID-compatible set-top decoder; and an
authoring board for the Macintosh or PC platforms.

"This turnkey system will enable content creators to develop and debug an
application, then run it using a real set-top," explained Sultan Zia,
general manager of Digital's Video and Interactive Information Services
group. "Content will drive the entire industry, and together with
OptImage, we're taking the lead in making it easy for content developers
to create high-quality applications for interactive video networks," Zia
said.

Commenting on the initial applications expected to be created with this
system, Bill Wilson, president of ITO, Inc., an interactive applications
developer based in Indianapolis, said, "This arrangement between OptImage
and Digital creates a big advantage for companies like mine -- the ability
to go to one place for a turnkey system. Now I expect to have applications
ready in a much shorter time than I originally anticipated."

OptImage's acclaimed authoring tool, MediaMogul, has been enhanced to allow
producers to create applications for interactive television systems.
MediaMogul is a full-featured multimedia authoring package which makes it
easy to combine video and audio assets -- images, drawings, animation,
full motion (MPEG) digital video, voice, music and sounds -- into
sequences and interactive branches that respond to user input. MediaMogul
has been used to create thousands of titles for playback on CD-i players,
which are television-based systems with limited memory. The technical
parameters for CD-i playback closely match the playback requirements for
interactive television set-top decoders, making MediaMogul a natural
choice for interactive television application development.

Digital's media server has already been selected by more cable and
telephone companies worldwide than any other media server provider. The
company's Video and Interactive Information Architecture provides a
full-service solution for delivering interactive video applications over
many types of networks. Currently the industry's only second-generation
media server, Digital's platform features object-oriented middleware that
links the world's fastest server systems -- based on 64-bit Alpha
processors -- with the company's StorageWorks disk arrays and digital tape
library systems. VIIA also provides network, subscriber, and billing
management capabilities in an open framework that supports third-party and
legacy applications.

OptImage was formed to provide leading edge authoring solutions for
developers of software titles for consumer and professional markets.
OptImage's product line has grown to include additional multimedia tools
such as audio and image conversion utilities, MPEG compression tools, CD
recording software, disc building (including CD-i, CD-ROM XA and Video CD)
and emulation tools. The company offers a complete line of authoring tools
for both the programmer and non-programming designer. Products are
available for use in a variety of authoring environments including
Macintosh, IBM PC and compatibles, SUN and Philips CD-i.

Digital Equipment Corporation is the world's leader in open client/server
solutions from personal computing to integrated worldwide information
systems. Digital's scalable Alpha platforms, storage, networking, software
and services, together with industry-focused solutions from business
partners, help organizations compete and win in today's global
marketplace.

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