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Khronos Group Launches OpenML Beta SDK

Available free-of-charge from the Khronos website; Significant Industry Interest in Alpha SDK with Over 5,000 Downloads

December 9, 2003 – Digital Video Exposition (DV Expo), Los Angeles – The Khronos Group today announced the first beta release of the Software Development Kit (SDK) for OpenML® 1.0. The alpha release of the SDK at the SIGGRAPH trade show on July 29, 2003 generated strong interest in the digital media industry with over 5,000 downloads from the Khronos web-site. The OpenML API standard provides software and hardware developers with a complete, cross-platform, programming environment for the standardized capturing, processing, synchronizing and playing of digital media content. With the widespread adoption of OpenML, developers can take advantage of open system architectures for integrated graphics and video software; enabling the development of cross platform media content authoring applications. The OpenML Beta SDK can be downloaded, free-of-charge, at www.khronos.org/developers/downloads.html

The OpenML 1.0 SDK Beta1 delivers the media library (ML) and the display control (mlDC) components of the OpenML specification. The release enables full functionality for configuring and controlling video/audio device input, output and processing, and for setting up and controlling channels in display screens. The OpenML SDK Beta1 release, available for both the Windows and Linux platforms, complements the OpenML SDK already available from SGI for the IRIX® platform. Khronos is working towards a final release of the OpenML 1.0 SDK for Windows, Linux and IRIX in the spring of 2004 and will soon release details of its OpenML 1.0 Adopters Program designed to provide interested companies with access to the source code for OpenML Conformance Tests and the final OpenML SDK.

The Khronos Group believes that the OpenML standard is key to enabling growth in the digital media authoring, playback and streaming markets. OpenML enables multimedia authoring application developers to efficiently develop and deploy cross-platform applications that interoperate with a wide selection of systems and peripherals, enables hardware vendors to leverage the efforts of a larger base of application developers, and offers end-users increased functionality across a wider range of platforms at cheaper prices. OpenML enables media processing components from many manufacturers to be flexibly mixed and matched to increase end-user flexibility while reducing platform costs.

Quotes from Khronos Members
“Discreet firmly believes the digital media industry is ripe for more effective standardization that will improve the development process for all manufacturers and enhance the end user experience through greater interoperability,” says Jean-Luc Dery, product development manager at Discreet and chair of the OpenML work group. “The OpenML 1.0 SDK fulfills this need by delivering the toolset needed to better leverage and harness the increasing number of professional-grade quality media technologies offered at lower cost.” www.discreet.com - (NASDAQ:ADSK)

“3Dlabs supports OpenML development through its commitment to the Khronos Group; helping develop this new standard that enables end-users to mix and match hardware and software components, so they can build media authoring platforms that truly meet their individual needs,” says Neil Trevett, senior vice president of market development at 3Dlabs and president of the Khronos Group. “OpenML also enables today’s advanced 3D workstation graphics boards to add
significant added value to video and media authoring applications – driving the convergence of the graphics and video industries.” www.3dlabs.com

“DVS is committed to the development of OpenML, as it provides a complete programming environment, with two distinct APIs and a set of OpenGL extensions, which enable applications to easily take advantage of standardized rich media hardware capabilities across multiple platforms. This will enable a hardware manufacturer such as DVS to support a variety of operating systems and provide standardized interfaces that will allow software companies to speed up their development process.” Marcus Goluecke, Product Manager, DVS - www.dvs.de

“Working with Khronos' OpenML enables Motorola to integrate dynamic media creation and presentation into a wide variety of architectures. This allows the creative development community to bring their ideas to market easily, without having to spend time grappling with technical details. The OpenML SDK is a step forward to reaching this goal.” Mike McCourt - Vice President and General Manager, Wireless Solutions Division www.motorola.com - (NYSE: MOT)

“RealVision continues their membership in the Khronos Group to further provide every customer in digital content creation with easy-use, convenient and high-performance development environments. The advancement and availability of open standard APIs creates a better relationship between hardware manufacturers and software companies by providing standardized interfaces that speed the development process. ” Mineshi Hasegawa, Executive Vice President, RVU Inc., a div. of RealVision, Inc. - (TSE: 6786.T) – www.realvision.co.jp - www.rvu-inc.com

“SGI is delighted to see the continued successes of OpenML. As the creator of OpenGL, and the first implementer of OpenML, SGI is firmly committed to the development of open standards. When fragmented, proprietary APIs are replaced by broadly supported industry standards, customers will be the ultimate winners.” Shawn Underwood, Director of Marketing, SGI (NYSE: SGI) - www.sgi.com