Panasonic
Selects Sonic DVDit! for DVD-RAM/DVD-R Drives
Adds Professional-quality DVD-Video Editing and Authoring on Panasonic DVD
Recordable Drives, Worldwide
Las Vegas, Nevada (April 23, 2001) - Sonic Solutions [NASDAQ: SNIC],
today announced that Panasonic will bundle Sonic's DVDit!™ LE editing
and authoring software with Panasonic's new DVD-RAM/R drive on a worldwide
basis. Combined, the products give multimedia and video professionals, graphic
designers, artists and consumers the power to create stunning, interactive
DVD-video content on a choice of DVD recording formats. Videos can be stored
on rewritable DVD for editing and additions or write-once DVD-R General
Use discs for playback on set-top DVD players and DVD-ROM drives.
Panasonic will demonstrate the new Combination DVD-RAM/R Drive with Sonic
DVDit! LE software at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show
(Sonic Solution Booth#S4826) in Las Vegas from April 23.
The combination DVD-RAM/R drive leverages Panasonic's 15 years of experience
in high-density, phase-change-type recording/reading technology and builds
on its nearly 3-year track record of delivering nearly two million highly
reliable rewritable DVD drives.
"As the leader in DVD authoring applications, Sonic has been the key
innovator in bringing DVD video publishing to the desktop," said Mark
Shibata, General Manager of Panasonic Industrial Company, Global Computer
Group. "At Panasonic, we have been working to make the DVD recording
and publishing process affordable. The result of our combined efforts is
a universal DVD drive and software that will revolutionize DVD-video applications
for corporate and professional video producers as well as consumers. We
have been extremely pleased to collaborate with Sonic to bring this revolutionary
product with its rich set of features and performance to market. Including
Sonic DVDit! with Panasonic's combination drive provides users with the
ability to easily organize their multimedia content into an interactive
format which can be stored on DVD media. Featuring a simple and straightforward
user interface and Sonic's award-winning DVD formatting technology, DVDit!
makes building DVD titles as easy as selecting a menu background and then
dragging and dropping an AVI, QuickTime or MPEG video file into the application.
DVDit! automatically builds buttons and interactivity, and then multiplexes
and formats the content.
"Panasonic's new DVD-RAM/R drive is a no-compromise DVD storage solution
that delivers performance, recording flexibility and compatibility,"
said Mark Ely, Vice President of Business Development at Sonic Solutions.
"The combination of the drives' features, DVDit!'s ease of use, and
the system's low price, means that the wait is over for businesses and consumers
who want to move their multimedia and video content to DVD."
When used with Panasonic's DVD-RAM/R, DVDit! users can write completed DVD
projects to DVD-R General discs at 1x (1.4 MB/s) or to DVD-RAM at 2x (2.8
MB/s). To provide a complete, ready-to-use DVD authoring solution, Matsushita's
Panasonic Soft-Module Company and Sonic collaborated on the development
and integration of a software MPEG-2 codec that creates DVD-Video from high-quality
video sources recorded by a DVD recorder with the VR format.
About Panasonic's DVD-RAM/R Drive
Panasonic's new DVD-RAM/R drive is equipped with an ATAPI interface and
is available as an internal unit. The drive is scheduled to begin shipping
to channel partners in the second quarter of this year. The drives will
have a MSRP under $1,000. In addition to the bundled Sonic DVDit! LE software,
the DVD-RAM/R drive includes the following Windows 95, 98 and NT 4.0 software:
device driver, UDF-installable file system, MPEG-2 real-time encode/decode,
backup and utility software.
About Sonic DVDit!
Sonic DVDit! is the easiest way to publish on DVD. Combining a simple and
straightforward user interface with Sonic's award-winning DVD formatting
technology, DVDit! gives video professionals, graphic designers, artists
and video enthusiasts the power to create stunning interactive DVD content
on their PC. Recently, Sonic DVDit! has been honored with awards by many
of the video industry's leading trade publications including Millimeter
magazine's Tommy Award, Television Broadcast's Pick of Show, DV Magazine's
Award of Excellence, a perfect score review in PC Magazine, and Authoring
Product of the Year from Videomaker Magazine.
About Panasonic
Panasonic is the best known brand name of Osaka, Japan-based Matsushita
Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (NYSE: MC),
one of the world's leading producers of electronic and electric products
for consumer, business and industrial use. Additional information on Panasonic
and Matsushita Electric is available at www.panasonic.com. For more information
on the Panasonic DVD-RAM/R OEM drive and DVD media, contact Panasonic Industrial
Company, 1600 McCandless Drive, Milpitas, CA 95035; 408.945-5600, FAX 408.262-4214,
E-mail berzind@panasonic.com.
Or, visit the company's Web site at www.panasonic.com/oemdvd-ram.
For more information on Panasonic-branded DVD-RAM/R drives and DVD media,
contact Panasonic Digital Document Company, Two Panasonic Way 7D-8, Secaucus,
NJ 07094 800-742-8086, www.panasonic.com/storage
or E-mail vidalc@panasonic.com.
In Canada, contact Panasonic Canada, Ambler Drive, Mississauga, Ontario
L4W 2T3, Canada; (905) 238-2254, FAX (905) 238-2414, E-mail rkwong@panasonic.ca.
About Sonic Solutions (NASDAQ: SNIC)
Based in Marin County, California, Sonic (http://www.sonic.com)
is the leading manufacturer of solutions for DVD publishing. Sonic DVDit!™
(http://www.dvdit.com)
is the first application for DVD authoring targeted at videographers and
corporate video producers, and is bundled with major video editing, capture,
encoding and media production systems. Sonic MyDVD™ (http://www.mydvd.sonic.com)
is the first DVD authoring application for consumers, making it easy to
capture "your life on DVD." Sonic DVD Creator®, Sonic Scenarist®,
Sonic ReelDVD® and Sonic DVD Fusion® are the most widely-used systems
for professional DVD publishing, and are installed worldwide at major studios,
post production facilities and in corporate marketing departments. SonicStudio®
HD is the leading digital workstation for preparing audio for release on
CD and is the first for creating content for the new DVD-Audio format. Sonic
is a full voting member of the DVD Forum, the standards-setting body for
the DVD format.
© 2001 Sonic, Sonic Solutions, the Sonic logo, eDVD, MyDVD, DVDit!,
"The Easiest Way to Publish on DVD" and "Your Life on DVD"
are trademarks of Sonic Solutions. DVD Creator and DVD Fusion are registered
trademarks of Sonic Solutions. All other company or product names are
trademarks of their respective owners. Specifications, pricing and delivery
schedules are subject to change without notice.
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