Seagate Expands Support For Professional Audio/Video System Storage Applications; Unique distribution strategy enables A/V Professional integration partners to optimize Seagate disc drives

Business Wire, April 5, 1995

SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 5, 1995--Seagate Technology is broadening its leadership position as a supplier of high-performance disc drives to the digital audio/video (A/V) application market by providing its distribution partners with a support program that will allow them to optimize Seagate Hawk, Barracuda and Elite brand disc drives for professional A/V applications.

These types of applications include video-on-demand systems being demonstrated by cable television companies for distributed pay-per-view programming and non-linear digital video editing systems used by film production companies to produce feature films. Other digital A/V applications that require fast mass storage include systems for play-on-demand corporate training videos, television production and the creation of sophisticated special effects used in many of today's box-office motion picture hits. These, among others, require the fastest disc drive performance possible and the very highest storage capacities available in order to manipulate these characteristically huge A/V data files.

"Seagate's A/V Professional program is the only such integrator support program to be offered by a disc drive manufacturer in this very fast-growing and important market segment," said Bernie Carballo, executive vice president of Sales and Marketing. "Instead of providing off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all versions of their drives to distributors, but the A/V Professional program is designed to maximize the performance potential of Seagate drives across the wide range of A/V applications in the market."

"Seagate has clearly established its leadership in the OEM segment of the professional A/V system storage market, and having thoroughly explored the requirements of the distribution channel we intend to establish our leadership there with this unique and innovative integrator support program," Carballo said. "Our certified A/V distribution partners will not only have the best drives and the widest selection available for this application segment, but the best means to customize the drives to serve their customers' range of A/V system applications."

"The professional A/V market is unique in terms of the requirements it imposes upon disc storage," said Phil Devin, vice president and chief analyst of Storage Technology Research at Dataquest. "Different A/V applications impose different requirements upon disc drives. Seagate is taking advantage of the ability to fine-tune its drives and maximize their performance for a range of A/V applications."

A Seagate A/V Professional disc drive differs from a conventional-use drive mostly in the configuration options that are selected through the SCSI-2 (small computer systems interface) sense/mode select pages on the drive. For long sequential reads characteristic of video-on-demand applications, Seagate's Hawk, Barracuda and Elite drives can be optimized for maximum data rates through the SCSI-2 mode select. In non-linear digital video editing applications, data is often not in sequential order, so the drive is required to seek faster and more often in order to assemble the video data accurately.

The A/V Professional program will allow Seagate's integration partners to select the best drive capacity, performance and interface options, and then make the appropriate adjustments in Seagate drives using systems equipped with special software that can address these SCSI-2 sense/mode select pages. These Seagate drives also feature ASA-2 (Advanced SCSI Architecture-2), which may also be configured to provide optimal combinations of functionality and performance for different A/V applications.

Seagate expects to have A/V optimized drives delivered from its certified distributors and integrators this summer.

Seagate Technology is a data technology company that provides products for storing, managing and accessing digital information on the world's computer and data communications systems. Seagate's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "SEG."

CONTACT: Seagate Technology, Scotts Valley

David Webb, 408/439-2838