ZOO Digital licenses Blue-Ray software to Hollywood client, shares surge 17.5%

ZOO Digital (LON:ZOO) has said that a major Hollywood film studio has adopted its recently launched automated authoring software for the Blu-Ray disc format, which enables entertainment products to be created more efficiently for multiple languages and territories.
Zoo said that an existing Hollywood studio client has adopted the software to create Blu-ray titles for recent and catalogue films for release in international territories. ZOO’s products are being used increasingly to centralise studio functions and drive efficiencies with each new product providing incremental recurring revenue potential from existing and new customers.
“The major studios are continually looking for ways to make the release of a product more efficient and cost effective, and we're delighted that our approach to these issues is continuing to resonate and gain traction. Most of our solutions provide an alternative way of looking at an established problem, and our Blu-ray software is a good example of this. We're delighted to be entering this exciting marketplace,” said chief executive of ZOO Stuart Green.

Blu-ray is a rapidly growing new generation optical disc format for high definition video. Consumer sales jumped 94% year-on-year for Q1 2010, according to figures recently released by the Digital Entertainment Group Europe.
Earlier this month, ZOO announced it had licensed its “highly successful” Media Adaptation Tool (MAT) to HudsonYards, the premedia division of The CAPS Group.

In the six months to 30 September 2009, ZOO achieved a 31% year on year increase in revenues to US$8.1 million and swung to profits, going from a loss of US$0.5 million in H1 2008 to a profit of US$0.4 million. The cash balance at the end of the period amounted to US$0.5 million.
ZOO is focused on the worldwide creative media production markets and in particular video production for entertainment applications, with customers including major film studios and other producers and publishers of video-based consumer products.
Shares in ZOO Digital jumped 17.5% on the news.