SANTA MONICA, CA - Artisan Entertainment has been calling on Sonic Foundry Media Services (www.sonicfoundry.com), here, to provide format conversion for feature properties it's releasing on DVD. Recently, Sonic Foundry used its ImagePlus process on "Reservoir Dogs," creating a high-quality 4-by-3 video transfer from the feature's 16-by-9 video master. Sonic technicians used pan and scan techniques to make sure the widescreen format's on-screen action made it through to the 4-by-3 version.

Earlier this year, Artisan Entertainment used Sonic's ImagePlus to create the "Rambo I," "II" and "III" DVDs. Artisan director of DVD production Miguel Casillas says the cost effectiveness of the video-to-video transfer allows Artisan to proportion more of its DVD production budgets into specaisl features such as enhanced audio and behind the scenes footage.

In addition to "Rambo" and "Reservoir Dogs," ImagePlus has been used for the DVD release of "The Omen" (1 & 2) for Fox.