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Cinemage Launches Prints-On-Demand Kiosk Project with HP

Visitors to museums and galleries equipped with the kiosks will be able to get high-quality reproductions of works on display in various sizes and can create high-resolution images of their own by bringing in their digital cameras or other storage media.

The kiosk will consist of a third party enclosure and touch screen, an HP large-format printer, and an HP server, which will host the Cinemage Multimedia Archiving software system.

"We have a strong mutual interest in the large-format image printing field for fine and decorative art reproductions," said Froese. "We're already using HP printers in our PrintMaster and ImageMaster series of systems, and with this project we'll expand our product line to include consumer kiosks as well as benefit from HP Canada's marketing programs, product distribution network, and field service organization."

To kick the project off, HP is contributing the HP Designjet 5500ps large format printer, which features ultraviolet-resistant inks for long image life, plus an HP ProLiant ML370 server and a kiosk enclosure to Cinemage. These products will be integrated with the Cinemage Engine to form a prototype of the packaged product.

With the kiosk distributed through the HP Colour Elite Reseller network, Cinemage will also offer ongoing operations support and systems maintenance, in addition to production services in order to help clients photograph, digitize and upload images from their collections into their local digital image gallery for printing and distribution through the kiosks. The HP Colour Elite Reseller network will provide hardware maintenance services for the electronic components.

"Our Colour Elite resellers are experienced and are seeing a strong interest in print-on-demand kiosk products," said Allen Rothwell, IPG Large Format Marketing Manager, HP Canada. "With this product we expect to satisfy the museum and gallery market in Canada as well as sports venues and many other commercial opportunities."

"These kiosks open up a whole new source of revenue for museums and galleries," said Froese. "Most already have a Gift Shop with a limited collection of pre-printed lithographic works, but our kiosks open up a gallery's whole collection for reproduction in a variety of sizes and varying materials such as photo and fine art papers or canvas to suit the buyers' needs."

In addition to accessing images in the client's local library, images from a central Cinemage image bank will also be available for purchase across the Internet for printing at the local kiosk site. And for those family and holiday photos, the kiosk will be equipped to accept images from a customer's own media (CompactFlash, memory stick, floppy disk) allowing customers to turn their own images into large format decorative art printed on canvas, Fine Art or photo papers, for subsequent professional mounting, matting and framing.

"These kiosks have a wide range of application in the exploding digital imaging market," said Froese. "Not only will you be able to get a Van Gogh or a Monet reproduction that looks like an original, but you can be your own Van Gogh with the high resolution now available with digital cameras, at modest prices."

For more information, contact:

Edgar Froese
President & CEO
Cinemage Corporation
604-669-0699
froese@cinemage.com

Cinemage trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "CIG".