America Online Licenses Sonic™ CD and DVD Burning Technology

Award-winning Sonic AuthorScript® to Power Disc Burning in New MusicNet on AOL

Marin County, California (February 26, 2003) – Sonic Solutions (NASDAQ: SNIC) and America Online, Inc. (AOL), the world's leading interactive services company, announced today that they have signed a licensing agreement that allows AOL to incorporate Sonic's CD-audio, CD-ROM and DVD-ROM burning technologies into its interactive and web-based applications and services. MusicNet on AOL, a premium music subscription service which launched today, will include the Sonic AuthorScript SDK (Software Developer's Kit) for CD and DVD burning. Support for CD burning in MusicNet on AOL allows members who browse and purchase music tracks from the vast MusicNet on AOL catalog to burn them safely and legally, directly to CD.

"As part of our ongoing effort to make online music mainstream, it is important for us to be able to give members a wide range of options for discovering, experiencing and owning music," said Kevin Conroy, SVP and General Manager, AOL Entertainment. "We heard from members that CD burning was an important part of their desired digital music experience and we wanted to be sure that it was seamlessly integrated into our first digital music subscription service. We chose Sonic's technology for our CD and DVD burn engine to enable CD burning in our new MusicNet on AOL service because they offer a proven solution that supports a range of recording and playback devices."

Sonic's AuthorScript SDK is the world's leading engine for DVD and VCD formatting and burning. Sonic has added CD-ROM, DVD-ROM and audio mastering to AuthorScript via the award-winning Primo SDK technology that Sonic acquired from VERITAS in December 2002. AuthorScript, coupled with the newly- integrated VERITAS technology, offers the most complete set of data, media, and audio formatting and burning modules of any engine on the market. AuthorScript licensees include Adobe, Easy Systems Japan, Microsoft and Sony.

"With the explosive growth of CD and DVD recording, consumers have an almost insatiable appetite for burning their own audio and data discs," said Mary Sauer, Senior VP of Business Development at Sonic. "AOL is the world's premier online media company, and with Sonic's AuthorScript SDK, AOL has the ability to integrate and deliver the most robust CD and DVD burning capabilities, as they have with the new MusicNet on AOL music subscription service."

About Sonic AuthorScript
AuthorScript is the technology underlying Sonic's award-winning authoring applications, and that has become the Hollywood standard for commercial title production. The AuthorScript API (Application Programming Interface) is a collection of C++ libraries that takes care of all of the low-level processes for converting video, audio, pictures, and graphics into a CD, DVD, Video CD, or Super Video CD disc. These libraries are available for license to third-party developers who would like to integrate CD-audio, CD/DVD-ROM or DVD-Video publishing into their applications, enabling direct publishing of video, pictures and audio onto DVD-recordable and CD-recordable discs.

The AuthorScript Burn Engine is an API (Application Programming Interface) that allows developers to quickly and easily add CD and DVD burning to most any software application. AuthorScript handles all of the low-level processes for converting and writing to CD and DVD media; this frees developers from having to tackle the complexities of device control and support and reduces the time to market.

Some of the key capabilities of the AuthorScript Burn Engine include:

• The ability to record Redbook audio CDs, single-session and appendable data CDs and DVDs, Video CDs, Enhanced and Mixed-mode CDs, and writing to and from disc image files
  


• Extensive drive format support including CD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW and DVD-RAM
  


• Full functionality on double-byte and single-byte character set operating systems, including Windows 98SE/ME, Windows 2000 and Windows XP

About AOL Music
AOL Music, a division of America Online, Inc., reaches the largest audience of online music fans in the world through a rich array of programming, products and services that make it easy to discover, experience, listen to and buy music online. AOL Music's offerings are available at the number one Internet music destination, the AOL Music Channel, and throughout the AOL service, AOL Broadband Services and AOL's family of Web brands including Netscape, CompuServe, AIM, ICQ, Spinner, Winamp and SHOUTcast. America Online, Inc., is a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: AOL). Based in Dulles, Virginia, America Online is the world's leader in interactive services, Web brands, Internet technologies and e-commerce services.

About Sonic Solutions (NASDAQ: SNIC)
Based in Marin County, California, Sonic Solutions (http://www.sonic.com) is the world's leading supplier of DVD creation software for professional, industrial and consumer applications. The majority of major film releases on DVD have been produced on Sonic's professional DVD authoring systems in studios around the world. Sonic's MyDVD® and DVDit!® are the most widely used DVD creation applications by consumers and video enthusiasts and are the solutions of choice among the key PC and after-market drive suppliers. Sonic's RecordNow is a leading solution for audio and data mastering. Sonic's AuthorScript, the DVD and CD formatting and burning engine that underlies Sonic's applications, is the most widely deployed DVD software engine and has been licensed by Adobe, Microsoft, Sony, and many others.

Sonic, the Sonic logo, CinePlayer, Edit-on-DVD, OpenDVD, and PrimeTime are trademarks of Sonic Solutions. AuthorScript, Sonic DVD Creator, MyDVD, DVDit!, ReelDVD, Scenarist and Sonic Solutions are registered trademarks of Sonic Solutions. All other company or product names are trademarks of their respective owners and, in some cases, are used by Sonic under license. Specifications, pricing and delivery schedules are subject to change without notice.