Hoping to take on the likes of Carlton Communications Plc, a new information technology company came to the London Unlisted Securities Market yesterday under the Stock Exchange’s greenfield rule: called Eidos Plc, the company hopes to trade on its Edit One system – and the company generated some comment in the weekend press because the system runs on the Acorn Computers Plc Archimedes RISC machine, and its prospects are seen as a lot brighter following the announcement that Apple Computer Inc and VLSI Technology Inc were investing in Acorn’s new Advanced RISC Machines Ltd company (CI No 1,564). Edit One is a video-editing system that stemmed from Stephen Streater’s studies at London University. It uses artificial intelligence and image recognition techniques and priced at UKP30,000, it offers savings on the costs of traditional video editing and special effects. Streater is the company’s technical director and has raised UKP1m for the company through the placing of 1m shares at 100 pence each by venture capitalist Lawnstone through stockbroker T C Coombs. Post-production houses will be the main market for the group’s Eidos Edit One, as well as makers of corporate videos and training organisations. Sales and marketing director Nick Davies is quoted in The Times as saying Edit One does for video what desk-top publishing does for print. There’s been a huge amount of interest. Using Edit One a video editor can store unedited programme material (called rushes) on a removable, erasable optical disk instead of tape, at low picture resolution. The images can then be reassembled in any order, in much the same way that a word processor manipulates characters. Consequently, the product will simplify the editing process as editors will be able to mix, wipe and key one image over another rather than having to splice tape. The company hopes to sell 81 machines by the end of 1991, generating post-tax profits of UKP432,000, on turnover of UKP2.5m. At the end of trading yesterday T C Coombs reported the shares to be trading in low volumes at between 100p and 105p.
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