Icon Joins Distributors Worldwide in Supporting a Cost-Effective HD Alternative to Blu-ray and HD DVD
New Medium Enterprises (NME) (OTC Bulletin Board: NMEN), the company bringing affordable high-definition (HD) home entertainment to the globe through HD VMD technology, today announced that Icon Film Distribution will release movies on HD VMD in Australia and New Zealand. The red laser-based HD VMD format gives consumers a total HD solution at prices competitive with the existing DVD market. Icon’s titles will be made available when HD VMD hits these markets this year, including We Were Soldiers, The Queen and Apocalypto.
“Icon is a distinguished player in international film with strong current releases and a library of well-known titles that have made an impact on audiences worldwide,” said Mahesh Jayanarayan, CEO, NME, Inc. “We look forward to expanding the global HD VMD content catalog with high quality titles.”
“The HD VMD solution will allow us to distribute our movies to a fan base that is craving an affordable HD experience in the home,” said Greg Hughes, General Manager, Home Entertainment, Icon Film Distribution. “We’ve seen tremendous momentum for the HD VMD format and plan to release dozens of titles in the Australian and New Zealand markets where HD VMD is available to the consumer.”
Currently NME has deals with leading movie distributors in Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, Scandinavia, the UK and the United States.
Worldwide, there will be hundreds of movies available on HD VMD at launch. The Icon titles to be released in Australia and New Zealand will include:
- Apocalypto
- Black Sheep
- Butterfly Effect
- Butterfly Effect 2
- Gosford Park
- Miss Potter
- The Descent
- The Hitcher
- The Queen
- We Were Soldiers
HD VMD is the only HD disc technology that offers a growth future to optical storage industry by offering increased disc capacity through its multilayer 2P process.
What you should know about HD VMD
HD VMD (Versatile Multilayer Disc) is NME’s proprietary HD disc format based upon established red laser technology enabling seamless and cost effective manufacturing solutions for HD products based on existing DVD industrial infrastructure.
NME’s patented 2P process succeeded in solving the technological problems which have limited DVDs to two information layers (DVD9). Multilayering is now possible with HD VMD’s commercial solution of 20 GB storage capacity for single sided discs (4 layers of 5 GB each). HD VMD has also proven the ability to achieve 24, 30, 40 and 48 GB capacity with the NME 2P process method. The NME 2P process is also applicable for manufacturing multilayer blue laser discs.
The HD VMD disc has a capacity to playback a full three hours of true 1080p content on one single side. The HD VMD format supports all existing DVD and CD disc formats, in addition to allowing consumers to play their existing standard-definition DVD collections up-converted to HD.
HD VMD is priced competitively with current DVD pricing and is considered a serious market contender as it provides access to high definition at a much lower cost than Blu-ray and HD-DVD drives and discs.
About NME
New Medium Enterprises HD VMD format and players provides the world’s first low-cost and true high-definition playback solution utilizing today’s red laser technology and existing DVD industrial infrastructure. Incorporating break-through optical storage capacity, a red laser-based HD file format, encryption technology, authoring tools and compression technologies, NME is providing the only high-quality and high-value offering for the discerning consumer electronics market. New Medium Enterprises, Inc. is listed on the OTC exchange in the U.S. under the ticker symbol (NMEN) and on Yahoo Financial website as (NMEN.OB). For additional information about NME, please visit http://www.nmeinc.com.
About Icon Film Distribution
Icon Film Distribution has been operating in the Australian and New Zealand markets since 2002. The company releases 12-15 films per annum acquiring those rights from international sales agents as well as releasing all titles that flow through from Icon Productions. Since its inception the company has had great success through the acquisition and release of such titles as Gosford Park, Bend It Like Beckham, We Were Soldiers, The Butterfly Effect, Ladies in Lavender, The Passion of the Christ, 2006 Academy Award- Winner for Best Film Crash, Apocalypto, The Queen and Miss Potter. The company is positioned as the leading independent distribution company in the territory with a stand-alone sales and marketing operation based out of Sydney with a staff of 14. In June of 2006 the company announced the formation of a Home Entertainment division that manages content across all non-theatrical channels including Home Video. More information about Icon can be accessed by visiting http://www.iconmovies.com.au/.
