Silicon Image Unveils PanelLink Cinema Partners Program To Multi-Industry Support

Program Assures Consumers Of HD Content-Ready HDMI Products And Establishes Gold Standard For HDMI Interoperability

10-Feb-03

Silicon Image, Inc. (NASDAQ: SIMG), a leader in high-bandwidth semiconductor and system solutions for mass markets, announced the creation of PanelLink Cinemaô Partners, a multi-industry initiative designed to give consumers the confidence to buy HD content-ready products equipped with the High-Definition Multimedia Interfaceô (HDMIô) and High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP). PanelLink Cinema Partners brings together companies from the consumer electronics, semiconductor, and major motion picture industries to accelerate the adoption of HDMI with HDCP while ensuring certain compliance and interoperability specifications are met. Consumer electronics manufacturers JVC, LG Electronics/Zenith, and Sharp and cable/connector manufacturer JAE are committed to providing products that incorporate or support HDMI and HDCP, thus enabling consumers to receive and render premium, high-definition digital video content. HDMI accommodates uncompressed high-definition digital video and multichannel audio in a single cable, providing consumers with crystal-clear audio and video while dramatically simplifying ease of use. As a founder of the HDMI Working Group and provider of the core TMDSô technology underlying the HDMI specification, Silicon Image is uniquely qualified to deliver this far-reaching program to the industry. ""Silicon Image is taking a leadership role in enabling high-definition TV content delivery to consumers,"" stated David Lee, Silicon Image President and Chief Executive Officer. ""HDMI enables the delivery of all-digital enhanced- and high-definition content, and the addition of HDCP gives major motion picture producers assurance that their premium HD content will not be copied and redistributed en masse. For the consumer, the PanelLink Cinema Partners logo means HD content-ready HDMI products. Major content providers strongly endorse the program and look forward to releasing their premium content via secure technology like PanelLink Cinema. Consumers buying HDMI-compliant products from participating PanelLink Cinema Partners manufacturers can rest easy knowing they will be able to access new, premium, all-digital content for the ultimate home theatre experience."" Andrew G. Setos, President of Engineering, Fox Group, said, ""Silicon Image's pioneering work in protected digital display links has paid off with their latest innovative efforts towards the market introduction of the HDMI/HDCP program called PanelLink Cinema Partners. Products from participating manufacturers, while maintaining maximum backwards compatibility with the dozens of DVI/HDCP-equipped consumer HDTV displays being shown at this year's CES, will open the door to total conversion from the various and incompatible analog component connections found worldwide to a single, all-digital solution. Consumers and content owners alike will come to be comforted by PanelLink Cinema Partners program knowing that such products will be totally compliant with the specification and will achieve the ultimate technological goal of 'plug and play.' Thanks to Silicon Image we look forward to the introduction of this consumer-friendly technology which suffers no 'legacy' or other confusing incompatibilities."" Chris Cookson, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Warner Bros., stated, ""When consumers purchase innovative digital consumer electronics products that promise to deliver such exciting new home entertainment experiences, it is important that those products are compatible with and play future high-value digitally protected content. We applaud the PanelLink Cinema Partners program and its participants for providing a means to identify HDMI-enabled products with the content protection technology that will enable access to, delivery, and protection of our premium content."" PanelLink Cinema Partners consists of three components: Compliance and logo usage, cable certification, and licensing of PanelLink Cinema core technology. By incorporating HDMI and HDCP in their products, participating consumer electronics manufacturers have committed to ensuring that their platforms are HD content-ready. A PanelLink Cinema certification logo signifies the designated products support HDMI and HDCP and are interoperable with the other HDMI products bearing the same mark, eliminating potential customer confusion that may arise with HDMI-based products that do not fully interoperate because one product lacks HDCP support. As such, PanelLink Cinema Partners creates an early, gold standard for interoperability and assures consumers of access to premium content from major motion picture producers.The cable certification program delineates three levels of cable quality based on robust performance at different video resolutions. PanelLink Cinema Silver cables will provide robust HDMI performance for most enhanced- and high-definition TV resolutions including 480p, 720p, and 1080i, while Gold and Platinum cables will accommodate higher resolutions up to 1080p. To ensure access to multiple sources of HDMI-compliant silicon, Silicon Image anticipates licensing its implementation of PanelLink Cinema technology to participating semiconductor manufacturers, creating an end-to-end, interoperable HDMI solution certified by Silicon Image. ""HDMI with HDCP is a very useful technology to deploy a digital world for future audio and video products. In order to preserve customers' benefits and eliminate potential customers' confusion, some method will be necessary to maintain interoperability of CE products with such an interface,"" said Mr. Kuniyuki Kanai, Vice President and Division General Manager of the Digital Information Appliances Development Center, Sharp Corporation. ""JVC supports the work that Silicon Image is doing to ensure the highest levels of interoperability among HDMI-compliant products,"" said Kazuo Kohda, General Manager, Strategic Planning Department, JVC AV & Multimedia Company. ""As an early adopter of DVI/HDCP in consumer electronics products, we understand the importance of quality components and appropriate content protection technology to the success of a new digital interface."" ""LG Electronics wants to make consumers' transition to HDMI products as easy as possible, and the PanelLink Cinema Partners program will help us achieve this goal,"" stated J.S. Park, Vice President and Director of the DTV Laboratory at LG Electronics. ""By combining HDCP with HDMI, the PanelLink Cinema Partners program assures consumers that they will be able to view premium HD content on their HDMI digital televisions. In addition, consumers will know that their HDMI product is of the highest quality and interoperable with other HDMI devices.""For more information about Silicon Image, visit www.siliconimage.com.

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