Matsushita Electric Establishes Panasonic Hollywood Lab To Develop Technologies For New Broadband Applications

Focus Will Be On Collaboration With Hollywood Studios On Video Compression And Digital Content Distribution Aimed At New Broadband Services

6-Apr-01

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., best known by its Panasonic brand name, announced the establishment of the Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory in Universal City, California. The new lab, a division of Panasonic Technologies, Inc., will conduct research and development on next-generation digital video compression and technologies for broadband distribution of video and other digital content. ""To help consumers enjoy the full benefit of rapidly expanding broadband applications, we need to collaborate even more closely with Hollywood movie studios and other content providers to develop new digital content distribution services,"" said Mr. Yoshiaki Kushiki, Matsushita Electric board member and head of multimedia and software technologies. ""Panasonic continues to be a strong ally in supporting the needs of Hollywood from both a creative and a business perspective,"" said Jerry Pierce, Senior Vice President, Technology, Universal Pictures. ""The opening of the Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory will provide even more opportunities for studios to participate in engineering and development work, which can result in new and better products and systems for consumers as well as the industry.""Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory will focus its research and development efforts on high quality digital video compression and new content distribution formats and applications that utilize broadband digital network technologies, including mobile communications and digital TV. The new lab, which will be headed by Mr. Masayuki Kozuka, Director, will also have an internal Digital Video Quality Center to engage in an ongoing exchange with video industry professionals related to evaluating high definition image quality for digital cinema, digital TV and next-generation DVD, as well as highly compressed imaging for next-generation mobile devices. Matsushita Electric has a long record of close cooperation with Hollywood. The company established the High Definition Telecine Center on the Universal Studios lot in 1993 with the mission of converting film-based content to high definition video. And, in 1996, it also opened the Digital Video Compression Corporation, a pioneering DVD authoring center on the same lot. Most recently, the company worked closely with major music labels, including Universal Music Group, to develop technologies for the distribution of music and other content over the Internet, using digital rights management technologies and SD Memory Cards for storing downloaded music. Panasonic Technologies, Inc., headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey, is the principal U.S. R&D subsidiary of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. The company has ten R&D centers, including one venture capital and incubation center. These R&D centers are engaged in research in advanced television systems, networking technologies, industrial automation, speech technology, DVD encoding/authoring among other fields. Panasonic Technologies began digital video compression R&D in the U.S. in 1979 with the establishment of Matsushita Applied Research Laboratory, which later became Panasonic AVC American Laboratory. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (MEI) (NYSE: MC), best known for its Panasonic brand name, is a worldwide leader in the development and manufacture of electronics products for a wide range of consumer, business, and industrial needs. Based in Osaka, Japan, the company recorded consolidated sales of $68.9 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2000. For more information, visit Matsushita's Web site at www.panasonic.co.jp/global/top.html. Its principal U.S. subsidiary is Secaucus, New Jersey-based Matsushita Electric Corporation of America which, along with its affiliates, has more than 25,000 employees in North America. Additional information on Panasonic and Matsushita Electric is available at www.panasonic.com.

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