Project Will Enable Hundreds of U.S. Sailors and Marines to Record Video “Stories” During New York’s Historic Fleet Week
San Diego, CA and New York, NY–May 26, 2004—DivXNetworks, Inc., today announced that it has donated its patent-pending DivX® video compression technology for use in the USO Video Story Project, an initiative that will enable hundreds of U.S. service men and women to create video messages and distribute them to family members all over the country during New York’s 17th annual Fleet Week.
Produced by Our Living Tree, a New York based team of personal and family historians, the USO Video Story Project will let 400-600 U.S. military personnel record video messages at the USO of Metropolitan New York (United Service Organizations) Center from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM from Thursday May 27 to Tuesday June 1. Each service man and woman, working with trained personal historians and interviewers, will have up to 10 minutes to tell their story. The video stories will then be compressed using DivX video technology, saved to Cruzer® mini portable USB flash drives donated by SanDisk Corporation of Sunnyvale, California, and sent to the family members of military personnel. Additionally, Our Living Tree has also arranged for VMDirect to send a personalized e-mail message or an e-greeting card via videoemail.
“The USO Video Story Project is a great initiative that shows the potential of cutting-edge technology to serve as a positive force in society,” said Steve Frison, Chief Operating Officer at DivXNetworks, Inc. “We are proud to be involved in a project that helps service men and women communicate with loved ones all over the country.”
DivX, often called the “MP3 of video”, is a video compression technology that compresses video files down to 1/10th the size of a DVD with no noticeable loss in quality. The superior compression of DivX technology enables the video messages created by military personnel to easily fit on the portable USB flash drives donated by SanDisk or be distributed to family members via email.
“We believe that telling stories helps bring, and keep, families together. Back in World War II, the USO set up recording booths for GIs to cut 6-inch vinyl record and then sent them stateside. Now 60 years later, great new technologies such as DivX are letting service men and women do much the same thing in far more efficient way,” said Bob Breakstone, President of Our Living Tree. “We are grateful to DivXNetworks for their participation in the USO Video Story Project, and we look forward to bringing the stories of hundreds of sailors and marines to their families across the country.”
The USO Video Story Project is sponsored by DivXNetworks, Blastgard International, SanDisk and VM Direct, with the help of the Association of Personal Historians, Berwyn Editorial, Metrovision, Tamberelli Video and numerous volunteers. For more information on Our Living Tree, visit www.ourlivingtree.com. To learn more about DivXNetworks, visit www.divxnetworks.com.
About DivXNetworks
DivXNetworks is a consumer-focused video technology company positioned at the center of multimedia convergence. The company’s core offering is the DivX ® video codec, among the world’s most popular video compression technologies with over 120 million users worldwide. Often called “the MP3 of video,” the patent-pending DivX video technology offers DVD-quality at 10 times greater compression than MPEG-2 files, enabling full length films to easily fit on a CD or be delivered over broadband connections. DivX video technology powers a range of applications that span the convergence value chain, from a secure IP-based video-on-demand solution to next-generation consumer electronics products and video software applications. DivXNetworks is headquartered in San Diego, California, with satellite offices in Los Angeles and San Jose, CA, Taipei, Taiwan, Tokyo, Japan, Guildford, England and Dortmund, Germany.
About Our Living Tree
Our Living Tree has created the family album of the 21st Century. Recognizing that every family has a unique history with memories to preserve, Our Living Tree designed several ways to connect generations of yesterday and tomorrow — by documenting stories and keeping traditions alive. The company’s mission is to help others celebrate their family stories and memories in an exquisite way and keep the history of their roots alive. They publish those stories as oral histories, carefully crafted book, family trees, video biographies and the Family Interactive CD — a family website on a CD. Our Living Tree enables values, stories, photos and history to be passed on — possibly the most meaningful gift you can give — or receive.