Sonic Solutions DVDit! Streamlines DVD Publishing With Panasonic Rewritable DVD Drive; A Single Mouse-Click Turns Corporate Productions Into High-Quality DVDs

Business Wire, April 21, 1999

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 21, 1999--

Sonic Solutions and Panasonic Industrial Company announced today at the National Association of Broadcasters Convention (NAB) that Sonic DVDit!(TM), the industry's easiest-to-use DVD publishing software, supports Panasonic's LF-D101 DVD-RAM drive.

With DVDit! and the Panasonic(R) rewritable drive, Windows(R) NT and 98 users can publish memorable presentations, marketing/promotional materials, advertising comps, kiosk videos, interactive training, educational and multimedia productions with a quality that is far superior to tape or CDs.

"With DVDit!, Sonic brings all of the experience it has gained in developing the leading DVD publishing systems for video, audio and multimedia professionals to corporate and home users," said Jeff Saake, group general manager, Panasonic Industrial Co., Computer Technology Group. "By combining DVDit! with our DVD-RAM drive, even a novice can produce high-quality video productions."

Featuring an intuitive user interface, lightning-quick operation and a high-powered formatting engine, DVDit! makes publishing video content with the Panasonic DVD-RAM drive a simple three-step process. First, MPEG-2 video is captured (using an off-the-shelf video encoder) and edited (using an application such as Adobe Premiere). Next, the video clips, audio, backgrounds and buttons are dragged-and-dropped into DVDit! Then, with a single mouse click, the video is recorded to the DVD-RAM media in the MPEG-2 format.

"DVD delivers a new level of quality, flexibility and performance to corporate and home video productions," said Chris Kryzan, senior vice president of Marketing and Engineering for Sonic Solutions. "The key factors driving the adoption of DVD are the higher capacity that it provides, combined with its ability to deliver full-screen, full-motion video; crisp digital sound and complex interactivity. Panasonic's DVD-RAM offers all of these features plus the ability to edit your work or overwrite the entire production."

A highly versatile storage solution, the LF-D101 drive can also be used to read from discs currently accepted by CD-ROM, CD Audio, CD-R, CD-RW and video CD drives, as well as DVD-ROM, DVD video, and DVD-R drives. Panasonic, the first to deliver DVD-RAM drives and media, was also the first to offer a DVD-ROM drive that reads DVD-RAM media. The media interchangability of the Panasonic drive provides added value to users who are also looking for a high-quality, low-cost, removable storage solution.

About the Panasonic LF-D101 DVD-RAM Drive

Panasonic's LF-D101 drive has a MSRP of $799 and is available as an internal drive with a SCSI-2 interface through leading distributors and OEMs. DVD-RAM media, which is marketed under the Panasonic brand name, is also available from several other leading manufacturers. The removable, double-sided 5.2GB disc has a MSRP of $39.95. The 2.6GB single-sided media has a MSRP of $24.95 and is sold with a removable cartridge.

About Sonic DVDit!

Sonic Solutions DVDit! is the easiest way to publish on DVD. Combining a simple and straightforward user interface with Sonic's award-winning DVD multiplexing technology, Sonic DVDit! gives video professionals, graphic designers, artists and video enthusiasts the power to create stunning interactive DVD content on their PC. Sonic DVDit! has a suggested U.S. list price of $499 and will be available for purchase from the DVDit! web site at www.dvdit.com beginning in July 1999.

About Panasonic

The Panasonic DVD-RAM OEM drive is manufactured by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (NYSE:MC), one of the world's leading producers of CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives and other digital electronic products. The drives are marketed by the company's principal North American subsidiary, Matsushita Electric Corp. of America.

For more information on the Panasonic DVD-RAM drive and media, contact Panasonic Industrial Company, 1600 McCandless Drive, Milpitas, CA 99035; Phone: 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.> In Canada, contact Panasonic Canada, 5770 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, Calif., Sonic Solutions designs and manufactures DVD publishing systems used by video, audio and multimedia professionals around the world to prepare music, video, film, graphics and entertainment software. Sonic DVD Creator is the leading system for producing content for the DVD format, and has been used to create thousands of DVD titles worldwide, for applications ranging from feature film releases to corporate and industrial titles.

Sonic DVDit! is the easiest way to publish on DVD and for the first time makes DVD production available to the consumer market. Sonic also offers SonicStudio HD, the leading digital audio workstation used by audio professionals to prepare recorded sound for release on DVD and CD, as well as for film and video soundtracks and broadcast.