TEWKSBURY, MASSACHUSETTS -- ECRM today announced the release of RIPMate v8.1. Powered by the latest in Harlequin RIP technology, ECRMs RIPMate 8.1 and its complementing counterpart WorkMates provide an ideal workflow solution for a wide variety of commercial printing and publishing applications. Users will benefit from major performance enhancements for rendering and trapping complex transparencies, as well as several new features that accelerate the incorporation and processing of PDFs in production workflows. The new RIP version is now available through ECRM and their worldwide dealer network. For more information about ECRM and their offerings, go to www.ecrm.com.  
 
Major New Features of ECRMs RIPMate v8.1
 
RIPMate now offers advanced capabilities including:
 
- Support for PDF v.1.7 and PDF/X-4: The new RIPMate v8.1 supports PDF/X-4, JPEG2000, optional content, cross-reference streams, compressed object streams and 16-bit images, as well as the processing of PDF versions 1.2 through 1.7. Users have the ability to process PDFs directly on the RIP through hot folders or the print file menu. Users can also pull files directly from the latest version of Acrobat or drop PDFs into design applications and RIP;
 
- Accelerated PDF Processing: RIPMate is now able to capture rasterized files leading to significant performance improvements for redundant images. The rasterized file of the image is retained in the RIP and subsequently used in pages sharing the same image. This is especially beneficial when processing PDF files with pages which share a non-variant background and have text which may vary from page to page. RIPMate scans the PDF for such pages, RIPs the invariant background once, and then retains it for use on the subsequent pages with the same background, drastically reducing production cycles;
 
- PDF Raster: This option offers users the ability to create a PDF of the actual rasterized file. Using the in-RIP trapping option, TrapMate, the PDF raster output plug-in can be used to image a composite (halftone) PDF with traps. Users can even turn on the highlight traps feature to output a composite PDF with the traps highlighted in either red or green. While all new RIPs and workflows include the ability to process PDF files, this feature allows users the ability to output a composite screened CMYK PDF file directly from their RIP or workflow;
 
- Multi-threading: Multi-threading allows RIPMate to take advantage of hyper-threading and multi-core CPU architectures, as well as multiple processors. Multi-threading is now available as a standard RIP feature and all RIPs are built with this feature enabled;
 
- Migrate Feature: The new Migrate Feature makes upgrading a users RIP easier than ever. Most users can utilize this feature to migrate page setups, and input channels and calibrations into the latest version of their RIP;
 
- Greater Operating System Compatibility: RIPMate 8.1 now runs on a Windows 64-bit operating system (as long as it is 32-bit compatible) or a Macintosh OS 10.5 (Leopard) Operating System.  For more information on hardware requirements, check out our website at http://www.ecrm.com/commercial/subcategory/RIP%20Upgrades/23/. .