Signiant Now Interoperates with Thomson Grass Valley Aurora HD Tapeless Production Suite

Signiant’s Digital Media Distribution Management Solution and the Thomson Grass Valley Aurora Editing Suite to Simplify News Production and Delivery Between Geographic Locations for Media and Entertainment Companies Worldwide

BURLINGTON, MA USA and AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS (IBC2008) – 12 September, 2008 — Signiant®, Inc., the leading developer of digital media distribution management solutions (DMDMS) for the telco, media and entertainment industries, today announced that Signiant’s DMDMS products are now qualified to interoperate with the latest version (6.5) of the Thomson Grass Valley™ Aurora™ HD editing and tapeless production suite of products.

The Thomson Grass Valley Aurora platform includes a scalable, high-performance, tapeless HD production suite of tools for news, sports and other time-sensitive applications. Signiant’s DMDMS helps media and entertainment companies manage, secure, automate and accelerate the movement of digital media within and between locations to form a complete, file-based digital media supply chain. Following extensive integration testing, customers currently taking advantage of Thomson Grass Valley Aurora products can now use Signiant’s award-winning DMDMS to manage and automate the movement or distribution of video content – from acquisition to production to playout.

By simply deploying Signiant in the Thomson Grass Valley production environment, and adding new "GXF File Send Types" to the list of target destinations in the Aurora options configuration, intelligent, prioritized and network accelerated file movements among Aurora and K2™ media servers for playout on the LAN or WAN are now possible using Signiant.

“Thomson Grass Valley is a strong global brand in both broadcast and digital media solutions,” said Dennis Albano, chairman and CEO, Signiant, Inc. “Our joint customers around the world will now be able to seamlessly integrate every aspect of the digital media production and distribution supply chain, increasing time to market of news and entertainment programming while reducing associated costs.”

"Our many news and broadcast customers are continuously looking for ways to simplify, automate and manage the digital media workflows – whether in production, post-production, or in final distribution – to multiple locations,” said Ed Casaccia, director of product marketing for Servers and Digital News Production, Thomson. “Signiant’s DMDMS will allow our customers to easily manage and automate the movement of content locally, and between global sites with speed, security and reliability.”

Signiant is exhibiting in the IPTV Zone, Hall 12, stand #IP201 at IBC2008, September 12-16 at the RAI Centre in Amsterdam. To schedule an appointment, please contact Tara Bartley at tbartley@signiant.com.

About Thomson: the worldwide leader in video solutions

Thomson (Euronext Paris: 18453; NYSE: TMS) is the world leading provider of solutions for the creation, management, delivery and access of video, for the Communication, Media & Entertainment (CME) industries. Our clients are studios, broadcasters, network operators (telcos, broadband, satellite and cable operators) and an increasing range of professional users of videos.

We deliver superior value to our customers through a unique combination of industry leading technologies, systems and services, enabling us to offer differentiated and innovative end-to-end solutions based on a broad portfolio of Intellectual Property. At the cross-roads of the CME industries, leveraging our core competencies in video but also audio, data and voice, we enable our customers to take advantage of the growth opportunities brought on by the digital convergence revolution. For more information: http://www.thomson.net

About Signiant

Founded in 2000, Signiant (www.signiant.com) is the digital media supply chain company that telco, media and entertainment executives rely on to manage the movement of media to the right place at the right time. With its open software platform that unites best-in-class management, acceleration, automation and security technologies, Signiant ensures that some of the world’s most recognized brands are able to deliver their digital assets and drive new revenue models. Signiant is headquartered in Burlington, MA with development facilities in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and offices in New York, Los Angeles and Manchester, UK. Read the Signiant blog at http://www.digitalmediagalaxy.com.