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Grass Valley Strengthens its Commitment to Post with Product Launches for the Bones Digital Intermediate Platform (11/5/2006)

Dedicated Booth Sees Major Product Launches for the Bones Digital Intermediate Platform and new updates for the Spirit family of scanners

Underlining its close relationship with the post production industry, theGrass Valley business within Thomson (Euronext Paris: 18453; NYSE: TMS) is taking a separate booth at NAB to showcase its film scanning, digital intermediate and editing solutions. This will be one of four pavilions under the Thomson brand at NAB: the Film & Video Professional's Pavilion, SL544 in the predominantly post-oriented Lower South Hall.

Alongside the market-leading Spirit family of datacines and film scanners, the latest additions to the Bones digital intermediate platform will be demonstrated. The modular Bones platform allows facilities to build precisely the functionality required. Modules run on standard computers under Linux, making Bones an extremely cost-effective way to create a digital intermediate workflow.

Bones is now fully compatible with the SGI CXFS file system. The SGI SAN is a popular choice in post production facilities, and Bones modules can be connected directly to the SAN, delivering high productivity and uncompromised quality at a very attractive price point.

"The post production industry needs to move to digital intermediate workflows quickly and without disruption, and our products are an important contribution to that transition," said Marc Valentin, president of the Grass Valley business within Thomson. "Our post customers have specific needs when they come to NAB - detailed demonstrations, and to talk with product specialists on building future workflows - so we have decided to take our offering to them and build a dedicated booth in the post production area of the convention." New Bones developments

Four new modules are to be launched at NAB:

· Bones Dustbusting - automated dirt and scratch removal

· Bones On Location - color management tools which enable looks established on set to be translated into post production

· Bones Advanced CCR - resolution independent color correction

· Bones Virtual Telecine - control of disk-based storage, including SANs, for non-linear color processing.

As well as new primary and secondary color correction tools, the latest version of Bones also has new matte generation and manipulation facilities for excellent image control. Bones is fully compatible with the emerging CDL (color decision list) standard developed by the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), which allows the exchange of color correction data between the systems of different vendors. Grass Valley is committed to open standards in all its systems, promoting choice for the user.

In the core Bones software, now at version 2.6, other improvements streamline the integration with Grass Valley Spirit Datacines and Spirit 2K and 4K film scanners, automating many previously manual set-up routines and thus saving time. Improvements to the user interface have also been made in response to customer requests.

Version 2.6 and the new Bones modules will be available for shipping immediately after NAB. Specially-priced packages will be available at NAB to help users of earlier Grass Valley post production products, such as Shout (dirt and scratch removal) and the Phantom Transfer Engine (media management) migrate to the Bones platform.

This announcement supports Thomson's two year overall strategy to help its global media and entertainment customer base acquire, create, edit and manipulate, aggregate re-purpose and package their high-value content. Grass Valley is a leading innovator and supplier of post production and digital intermediate platforms which are relied upon by leading facilities around the world.

www.thomsongrassvalley.com

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