S3ís Rio Group Licenses AAC For High-Quality Music Delivery On Rio Players

Next-Generation Rio Products To Ship With State-Of-The-Art Audio Compression

22-Jun-00

DolbyÆ Laboratories has announced that S3's Rio Group (NASDAQ: SIII) has licensed AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) technology for inclusion in a series of third-generation portable digital audio devices, including the Rio 600.""AAC support in our new Rio players means improved audio quality and high memory efficiency for consumers,"" said Mike Reed, Vice President of Marketing for S3's Rio Division. ""This is all part of the right formula for delivering more, high quality music on a portable player.""AAC is the latest audio coder standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as part of the MPEG specification. Compared to MP3 (MPEG Layer-3), AAC provides higher quality music while requiring approximately 30 percent less storage and/or bandwidth.Mechanisms for secure distribution of music over the Internet are currently under development. While standards for 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're pleased to announce that S3's Rio Group will be supporting AAC with its third-generation Rio players,"" said Ramzi Haidamus, Dolby Laboratories' Technical/Business Strategist. ""S3 pioneered the portable digital audio player market and has done a lot to make this format a success. With AAC and other new technologies, digital music will move beyond a grassroots phenomenon to become an e-commerce phenomenon and S3's Rio products will help make this a reality.""This spring, S3's Rio Group announced their plans to develop a family of third-generation digital audio players, including home, car and handheld products. S3 has also partnered with leading consumer brands like Nike and Boston Acoustics to broaden the market for digital audio players.For more information about AAC, please visit the AAC Web site, www.aac-audio.com, or send e-mail to aacla@dolby.com.About AACAAC 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 96kHz, and can achieve ITU-R broadcast quality at 320kb/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 Corporation), AAC is supported by a growing number of hardware and software manufacturers.About AT&TAT&T Corp (www.att.com) is among the world's premier voice, video and data communications companies, serving more than 80 million customers, including consumers, businesses and government. With annual revenues of more than $62 billion and 148,000 employees, AT&T provides services to customers worldwide. The company runs the world's largest, most sophisticated communications network and has one of the largest digital wireless networks in North America. Its services are backed by the research and development capabilities of AT&T Labs, which is working to create the information services and communications network of tomorrow. AT&T Labs is a leader in the development of technologies and standards for audio (http://www.research.att.com/history/soundinnovation.html), speech, video and image compression; electronic commerce and digital copyright management; search and directory services; speech processing and coding of all sorts; network architecture, design, engineering and operations; and other areas critical to the advancement of new broadband communications and Internet offerings.About Dolby LaboratoriesDolby 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, Beijing, Shanghai, and Tokyo.About Fraunhofer IISFraunhofer IIS (www.iis.fhg.de/amm) is the leading research laboratory in the area of audio coding. For more than ten 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 focussing on methods for intellectual property management and protection, including MPEG-4 and SDMI.About SonySony Corporation (www.sony.com) is a leading manufacturer of audio, video, communications, and information technology products for the consumer and professional markets. Its music, pictures, and computer entertainment operations make Sony one of the most comprehensive companies in the world. Sony recorded consolidated annual sales of over $56 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1999.

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