RioPort Licenses AAC for High-Quality Music Delivery Over the Internet From Dolby Laboratories; Store Less, Hear More in Future Versions of RioPort Audio Manager Jukebox Software

Business Wire, May 1, 2000

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 1, 2000

Dolby Laboratories announced that RioPort Inc., a pioneer in the digital audio download market, has licensed Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) technology for use in its RioPort Audio Manager software and related production and delivery tools.

AAC is the latest audio coder standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as part of the MPEG specification. Compared with MP3 (MPEG Layer-3), AAC provides higher- quality music while requiring approximately 30% less storage and/or bandwidth.

"We are pleased to announce the integration of AAC technology to RioPort's digital audio services and solutions," said Anthony Schaller, senior vice president and chief technology officer at RioPort.

"Our partnership with Dolby Laboratories enables us to provide our corporate customers with the latest industry-leading digital audio format. In turn, our customers can offer consumers the highest-quality audio content and AAC technology-enabled digital audio playback application for experiencing digital music."

Mechanisms for secure distribution of music over the Internet are currently under development. Standards for watermarking and encryption are being defined that will give the record industry confidence to begin releasing valuable libraries of recorded material.

Although security mechanisms are being cooperatively defined by the industry, multiple audio compression technologies are up for consideration. Of the competing technologies, only AAC is an international standard, and only AAC is being licensed by Dolby Laboratories.

"We are thrilled that RioPort has chosen to adopt AAC," said Ramzi Haidamus, Dolby Laboratories' technical/business strategist. "AAC is widely acknowledged as the superior technology, but wide acknowledgment doesn't make music sound better -- deployed technology makes music sound better. The AAC initiative is entering the deployment phase, and it is gratifying to be embraced by a market leader."

RioPort Audio Manager delivers digital audio enthusiasts with a powerful, yet easy-to-use, software application for enjoying digital media content. The current version of RioPort Audio Manager features audio and video playback of downloadable or streamed content, the ability to create custom CDs for playback on home or car CD players, one-click download to portable devices, and easy acquisition and downloading of tracks in multiple formats using an integrated Web browser.

Consumers can download a free version of the RioPort Audio Manager 3 at: www.mtv.com, www.vh1.com, www.sonicnet.com, www.ministryofsound.com or www.rioport.com.

For more information about AAC, visit the AAC Web site at www.aac-audio.com or send e-mail to aacla@dolby.com.

About AAC

AAC is high-quality audio coding technology and the solution of choice for many broadcast and electronic music distribution applications. AAC is compatible with all digital rights management, encryption and watermarking solutions available today. In independent tests, the coding efficiency of AAC proved to be superior to MP3, providing higher-quality audio reproduction at lower bit rates.

AAC provides up to 48 channels of audio, sample rates of up to 96 kHz and can achieve ITU-R broadcast quality at 320 kb/s for a 5.1-channel audio program. Developed and standardized as an ISO/IEC specification by four industry leaders (AT&T, Dolby Laboratories, Fraunhofer IIS and Sony Corp.), AAC is supported by a growing number of hardware and software manufacturers.

About AT&T

AT&T (www.att.com) is the world's leading provider of voice and data communications, with more than 80 million customers, including businesses, consumers and government. Backed by the research and development capabilities of AT&T Labs, the company runs the world's largest, most powerful long distance network and one of the largest wireless networks in North America.

The company is the leading supplier of data and Internet services for businesses and the nation's largest direct Internet service provider to consumers. AT&T also provides local telephone service to a growing number of businesses and consumers.

About Dolby

Dolby Laboratories (www.dolby.com) is the developer of signal processing systems used worldwide in applications that include motion-picture sound, consumer entertainment products and media, broadcasting, and music recording. Based in San Francisco, with European headquarters in England, the privately held company also has offices in New York, Los Angeles, Shanghai and Tokyo.

About Fraunhofer IIS

Fraunhofer IIS (www.iis.fhg.de/amm) is the leading research laboratory in the area of audio coding. For more than 10 years, Fraunhofer IIS has actively driven forward international standardization of several audio compression algorithms including MPEG Layer-3 and AAC.

Besides devising advanced algorithms, Fraunhofer IIS engineers focus on the effective implementation of state-of-the-art audio and video coding schemes on PCs and digital signal processors (DSPs). Fraunhofer IIS is active in international efforts focusing on methods for intellectual property management and protection, including MPEG-4 and SDMI.