ESS Technology's Phoenix™ HD Enhanced™ DVD Processors Achieve Nero Digital™ Certified status

Business Wire, Oct 12, 2006

ESS Brings the World's Leading MPEG-4 Compliant Audio and Video Compression Solution to Many Home Entertainment Centers

HONG KONG -- Hong Kong Electronics Show - Nero, leaders in digital media technology, announces that ESS Technology Inc.'s ES8380/ES8381 Phoenix[TM] HD Enhanced[TM] DVD processor is Nero Digital[TM] Certified. Nero Digital, co-developed by Nero and Ateme, is based on industry standards MPEG-4 Video (MPEG-4 SP/ASP and AVC/H.264) and MPEG-4 Audio (LC AAC und HE AAC) compression technologies. It enables the delivery of more high quality MPEG-4 compliant audio and video content at lower bit rates, while offering advanced interactive features.

The Phoenix ES8380/ES8381 single-chip HD Enhanced DVD processor, which features an integrated servo controller and RF amplifier, provides users with standard DVD decoding (with options to support MPEG-4 ASP decoding, HDMI transmitter and Class D power bridges). It incorporates advanced video enhancement features such as an HDTV encoder that can display JPEG pictures at full HD resolution, as well as video up-scaling and de-interlacing to display video at HD resolution.

"Nero Digital allows audio and video content to be easily managed without losing any of its original quality. This is especially apparent when dealing with high definition video and surround sound audio," said Tim Windsor, Nero Digital general manager. "The state-of-the-art Phoenix ES8380/ES8381 HD enhanced DVD processor is the perfect home for this technology."

For more information on Nero Digital, visit www.nerodigital.com. Nero will be exhibiting at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair, October 13 - 16 in Hall 5, Booth 5F40.

About Nero

Nero (www.nero.com) develops and distributes the world's leading digital media solutions for consumers and professionals. Today more than 200 million users worldwide rely on Nero's award-winning and trusted, industry approved applications to manage the needs of the connected digital home and forward thinking corporations.

Nero's rapidly-growing portfolio of products defines new levels of innovation in the company's three key areas of focus: Digital Media Solutions - delivering multimedia applications for data, audio, video, photo and TV capturing, editing, burning, managing and sharing; Audio and Video Compression Technologies - providing world-class interoperable standards-based solutions for encoding and decoding digital content with support for Next Generation blue laser HD and popular handheld formats.

Nero products are globally distributed by leading hardware manufacturers, international distribution partners and online portals, and can be purchased directly at www.nero.com. Nero provides worldwide coverage through Nero AG Headquarters based in Karlsbad, Germany and three regional offices worldwide: EMEA in Karlsbad, Germany; Americas in Glendale, California, USA; and APAC in Yokohama, Japan.

About ESS Technology, Inc.

Founded in 1984, ESS Technology designs, markets, and supports highly integrated, mixed-signal semiconductor, hardware, software, and system solutions. The company offers comprehensive, multimedia solutions for audio, video, and digital imaging applications in the consumer electronics marketplace. ESS Technology sells its products to a variety of global consumer electronics manufacturers including LG, Samsung, Philips, JVC and many others. The company holds a leading market share position in the digital video market. ESS Technology has established excellent relationships with manufacturers based on years of providing superior service, meeting on-time delivery requirements maintaining a low defect rate, and other important factors.

Nero[R], Nero Digital[TM] and Nero Sipps[TM] are trademarks of Nero AG and its subsidiaries. Any other product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

[c] 2006 Nero. All rights reserved.