At Macworld, BitJazz Inc. announced the imminent availability of the Mac+Intel and Mac Universal Binary editions of SheerVideo, their acclaimed cross-platform powerful real-time lossless software video codec. Introduced in 2003 as the fastest video codec in the world, SheerVideo lets users work twice as fast at half the uncompressed file size, with perfect fidelity to the original video and digitized film. The ultrafast nondestructive power of SheerVideo saves time, space, and money in professional video and film production and archival workflows, while faithfully preserving every single bit of image information.

Since the addition in 2004 of BitJazz's unique Synchromy color-conversion technology, hailed as the most accurate color-space converter in the world, SheerVideo has let users convert between RGB and Y'CbCr color spaces completely nondestructively - a feat previously considered impossible.

The new SheerVideo for Mac+Intel edition lets SheerVideo run in native mode on the new Intel Mac systems, while the Universal Binary edition runs both in native Intel mode and in Rosetta PowerPC emulation mode, as well as on any PowerPC running Mac OS X. These products join the existing lineup of editions for PC+Windows, Mac OS X, and Mac OS 8|9.

The initial release, scheduled for the end of January, will take full advantage of multiple cores and multiple processors on Mac+Intel platforms, as SheerVideo already does for Mac+PowerPC, where it also takes advantage of the AltiVec vector processing capabilities of the G4 and G5. A later release will add MMX+SSE vector optimization for a further boost in performance on Intel processors. Designed to facilitate the interchangeability of studio-quality video, film, and CGI image formats in professional video and film production and postproduction, SheerVideo permits editors to switch between their preferred tools on their preferred platforms with unrivaled speed, quality, and flexibility.

SheerVideo is available for Mac and Windows. SheerVideo Reader is free for all platforms. SheerVideo Pro is available now for US$149 for Mac OS X+PPC, Windows+PC, or Mac OS 8|9, and can be downloaded and evaluated for free for 20 days of use. SheerVideo Pro for Mac OS X+Intel will likewise be available for US$149, and SheerVideo Pro for Mac OS X Universal will be available for US$189. Customers who purchase SheerVideo Pro for Mac OS X this month or who have already purchased it will receive a complimentary upgrade to the Universal Binary edition. BitJazz is currently seeking beta testers for the new editions.

Available now for QuickTime on both Mac and Windows, a Windows Media (AVI) edition is also in beta and will be released soon.