POP, Cinram in DVD pact
Santa Monica visual effects and post house POP has formed a joint venture with Canadian company Cinram for digital videodisc authoring and multiplexing, which means combining audio, video and other data into its final format for mastering a disc.
The venture will be housed in a new facility adjacent to POP's film, video and sound studios. It is slated to open in March. An existing production facility is being renovated to accommodate the DVD operation.
Heading up technical aspects of the venture is director of digital audio compression Steve Thompson, who joined POP from Dolby last summer.
Jaime Ovadia, former senior VP of Warner Home Video, has been named VP of sales for the Cinram-POP-DVD Center, as the venture is known.
Cinram, headquartered in Toronto, manufactures pre-recorded multimedia products including videocassettes, CDs, audiocassettes, CD-ROMs and other products. The company recently acquired Disc Manufacturing Inc., which has one of its two facilities in Anaheim.
