Sonic hDVD Technology Brings ""HDPlanet"" Home

High Definition Video And Music Spectacle To Be Released On hDVD

15-Jun-00

Sonic Solutions announced today that the new hDVD format - an extension to the DVD format that supplements the standard definition video of DVD with high definition video - will be used to publish the live performances of ""HDPlanet"" held earlier this June in Chicago, Illinois. ""HDPlanet,"" a unique collaboration between Chicago radio legend Steve Dahl (WCKG-FM), award-winning television journalist Bill Kurtis and acclaimed record producer Joe Thomas, combined state of the art high definition video of nature and travel with a live music performance by noted musicians, including Joe Walsh, Christopher Cross and Jimmy Webb.""It's only fitting that this groundbreaking, high definition video and musical performance be published using the groundbreaking new hDVD format,"" said Mark Ely, Director of Product Marketing for Sonic. ""In collaboration with ëHDPlanet,í hDVD technology will be used to distribute the same 1080i video content from the live performance, combined with the high-quality uncompressed multichannel soundtrack. The resulting hDVD disc will be playable on a 650MHz or faster Pentium III PC with a DVD-ROM drive using a software-based hDVD video player."" ""The ëHDPlanetí performance was absolutely sensational,"" said Steve Dahl. ""It is difficult to adequately explain the vast superiority that high definition video offers, as compared to ordinary video or even 35mm film. Combining this with world-class musicianship made for an unforgettable live experience. Working with Sonic in the new hDVD format, we are able to bring the ëHDPlanetí experience to a whole new audience: PC users at home."" The video footage used during ""HDPlanet"" was largely photographed by renowned Chicago-based videographer Greg Gricus, who has accumulated one of the largest libraries of high definition video in the world. On the hDVD release of ""HDPlanet,"" viewers will be taken on a tour of the Grand Canyon at dawn, witness the grandeur of a tropical island, travel on a rockin' trip down Route 66, explore the brilliant Las Vegas strip, and even journey to the moon via footage captured during a recent voyage by the STS-93 Space Shuttle Columbia. The hDVD release of ""HDPlanet"" is planned for the Fall of 2000. About hDVD An extension to DVD, the fastest growing consumer format of all time, hDVD supplements the standard definition video with one or more of the high definition MPEG-2 video formats specified by the Advanced Television Standards Committee (ATSC). With more than four times the resolution of standard DVD-Video titles, hDVD titles show off original film or video content with unprecedented realism. To take advantage of the higher resolution and higher bit rate video material, Sonic Solutions has extended the DVD multiplexing and formatting engine used in Sonic DVD Creator, DVD Fusion and DVDit! to accept and author high definition MPEG-2 video content. Sonic plans to ship hDVD-ready authoring systems in conjunction with hDVD software players in the fall of 2000. About Sonic Solutions Based in Marin County, California, Sonic (http://www.sonic.com) is the leading manufacturer of solutions for DVD publishing and interactive, streaming video on the Internet. Sonic DVDit! (http://www.dvdit.com) is the first application for DVD authoring targeted at consumers and corporate video producers, and is bundled with major video editing, capture, encoding and media production systems. Streaming DVD is the first interactive technology based on DVD for content distribution over the Internet. Sonic DVD Creator and DVD Fusion are the most widely-used systems for professional DVD publishing, and are installed worldwide at major studios, post production facilities and in corporate marketing departments. SonicStudio HD is the leading digital workstation for preparing audio for release on CD and the first for creating content for the new DVD-Audio format. Sonic is also a full voting member of the DVD Forum, the standards-setting body for the DVD format.

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