DVD EXTRA, the technology that should see this company through to profits and a very bright future.
DVD-Extra

During the year the Group accelerated its development of a revolutionary
authoring software for producing interactive DVD-Video discs that will play on
any standard consumer DVD player. We applied for and received a SMART grant
award of 188,000 from the Department of Trade and Industry to assist with the
research and development. DVD-Extra unlocks the hidden interactive capabilities
that exist in every player, and allows developers to produce titles that exhibit
many of the properties of multimedia CD-ROM on a standard, unmodified, DVD
player.

ZOO's principal offering is a product for authoring interactive DVD-Video discs
called DVD-Extra Studio. This tool operates in a similar way to multimedia
authoring products that are designed for creating CD-ROM applications for PC and
Macintosh, but produces DVD-Video disc images as its output. It performs a
similar function to so-called DVD authoring products that are designed
specifically for creating DVD-Video discs, but due to the patent-pending
authoring method it employs, it offers substantial cost savings for companies
that are involved in the production of DVDs and also enables more sophisticated
functionality to be developed.

ZOO will license DVD-Extra Studio to multimedia developers and Compression and
Authoring facilities. Charges will be levied on a pay-per-use basis, such that
customers will pay a fee to ZOO for each project that uses DVD-Extra Studio.

The Group has applied for patents to protect the core DVD-Extra technology and
is continuing to further develop and protect its intellectual property
worldwide.

Outlook

Following the successful fundraising of 1.5m gross through the share placing
which was completed on 2nd June 2003 the Group looks forward to positive
progression. The portfolio of products is expanding, with a focus on the
development of our own intellectual properties. The board believes that the
combination of publishing low risk licensed product and in-house own brands
together with the huge potential of DVD-Extra Studio places the Group in an
excellent position for a move to profitability and significant future growth.

The Group plans to exploit the DVD-Extra technology internationally and has
established an Early Adopter Programme consisting of around twenty companies
including Technicolor, Warner and Comchoice, leading to the first commercial
release of the product within twelve months. We believe that the uniqueness of
DVD-Extra and the filing of international patents will allow ZOO to build and
maintain significant differentiation over other authoring tool providers.

John Barnes, Chairman

Ian Stewart, Chief Executive Officer.G

Is there anymore news to follow, or are we just waiting for the x-mas sells to increase the share price???

Does anyone have any comments???

One important piece of news will be profitability by the end of the "Old" Financial Year, these figures will still be published. That will be followed by the "New" end of Financial Year, March figures which will show the impact of the Christmas sales.

In between all that you will have the impact of the new releases of WWTBAM, globally and Guiness World Records on dvd. Add to that the probability of dvd-extra Disney announcement.

Interesting times ahead Artey

Well the share price has dropped back to yesterdays price. What move it up this morning in the first place???

Moving up nicely, I just love this company. So many games guys have a go but I dont have a clue, I just look at the balance sheet and I know its doing well.

cheers GF.

Whrn are we going to see an upward trend which is going to last, does anyone have any opinions????

zoo-tech are in new york on the 8th-9th november, go to www.zoo-tech.com

this page is more efficient, http://www.zoo-tech.com/news/2004/09/adtech_preview.html

and the thing about the New York trip, is that it is nothing to do with games. This zootech product is so versatile that it has to be a winner.

i wonder if shares mag prediction will come true, i cant see why dvd extra has not got the legs to go all the way,anyhow heres the prediction once again as a reminder, Shares Summary

There is a good chance that Zoo shares will eventually regain their glory levels of 74p after they listed in 2000. The technology works and companies are queuing up to buy it.

akel44

I'd imagine ZOO will eventually start to tick up at a better pace, but personally I don't think games is where they'll make the money. Consoles are far better at that and unless we have hundreds of 'Who wants to be a millionaire' style games it won't work IMO. However, having said that I do think there is huge scope for other interactive media such as film, etc. And I personally think that is where ZOO can make some real money, perhaps if they market more in that area the fruits will show. The dividion into 2 companies was a good move and I feel confident in ZOO's future (otherwise I wouldn't be holding after all).

As a final note, if you have any question about ZOO then I'd suggest emailing Ian Stewart CEO - I did and he is very welcoming of comments.

skids

Despite its somewhat meandering business direction during the Company's first few years, ZOO appears to have now found a strategy that is both delivering growth and should put it into profit in 2005. Its current status bears a remarkable resemblance to Eidos in its early years with a games publishing business being built up around a proprietary technology licensing business. Unlike Eidos, whose technology licensing efforts foundered, ZOO is expecting its ZOOtech division to become profitable in 2005 and has attracted a number of early-stage but high profile licensees including Universal, BBC and Celador. Despite concerted marketing and sales efforts by the Zootech team over the last few years, Universal remains the only major global DVD distribution partner. Zootech will need to secure others' support if it is to turn DVD-Extra into a global standard. However, the Company is reporting an encouragingly strong deal pipeline following the product's formal launch event in April 2004 and expects 100 products to have launched by the end of 2005. DVD-Extra does have some technology-based obstalces to overcome in the medium to long-term also, such as the consumer launches of Blu-Ray and HD DVD standards in 2005. Both of these initiatives are expected to receive widespread backing from the major DVD distributors and will likely prove divisive forces within the DVD entertainment market.
Possibly in recognition of these short and long-term risks, ZOO has begun to grow its traditional games publishing division aggressively with a regular stream of both licence and IP acquisitions (ZOO bought the Premier Manager IPR and the rights to dozens of other former Gremlin-owned titles from Infogrames in 2002 and 2003). The games publishing business has changed considerably since the days of CEO Ian Stewart's Gremlin and it is arguably a more hostile environment for small publishers to operate in. However, the ZOO games publishing model is very low risk (it rarely funds development, most of its products are licensed as completed projects and/or funded by third parties) and ZOO definitely has the potential to carve out a profitable niche for itself within this sub-sector

http://www.gamesinvestor.com/Companies/Zoo_Digital/zoo_digital.html

Another tickup. Slow but in the right direction.

zoos theory of dvd-extra=z=mc2 coupled whith the quantam theory and trace amounts of the x factor,hope none of this leads to a chaos theory (oh dear what idone)

zoos theory of dvd-extra=z=mc2 coupled whith the quantam theory and trace amounts of the x factor,hope none of this leads to a chaos theory (oh dear what idone)

Up she goes again. Looking very interesting now.

This upward trend should now continue as zoo r about to break into profits.
got a good few grand locked in this one. Just sit back and enjoy the ride...

more news for the portfolio, ZOO Digital publishing has acquired the Xbox, Playstation2, and PC publishing rights to Blowout. The game will be released on all three formats on 26th November. Blowout is a worthy addition to any shoot‘em-up fan’s collection, the game drops the player in at the deep end against swarms of alien nasties.

Any idea what kind of a share price we're looking at by the end of the new year..

That's a crystal ball kind of question!!!
All joking apart 50p is fair value if all the hype is to be believed,but if the company slips up in anyway so will the share price.