Johannesburg-based 'new media' owner, tbm Communications (Three Blind Mice Communications) is using the latest DVD or 'digital versatile disk' technology to drive its global advertising network.

According to tbm Director, Rob Nelson, the company's core business is distributing DVD quality video files over satellite. It runs a 110 site media business and corporate training network off the infrastructure. However, tbm's spin-off business - DVD authoring - is opening up a potentially massive new export market for the company.

tbm, which is able to encode MPEG video, prepare and encode audio, provide DVD title authoring and formatting, as well as final DVD disk image emulation at cost-effective rates, has already completed 27 DVD titles for various artists, production houses and distributors. The majority of these DVDs will be available through retail chains in the near future.

tbm owns one of the most comprehensive DVD authoring suites in Africa. The Spruce DVDMaestro consists of the software package, the PC, and the encoder board, which is the most important component of the DVD suite. According to CEO Pierre van den Hoven, tbm is essentially doing to video what e-mail did to the post office. Initially e-mail was designed to get a message from A to B, but today this technology has evolved into things like chat rooms.

tbm Communications

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