For more information, visit the Hitachi Web site at http://www.hitachi.com, or the Cygnet Web site at http://www.cygnet.com.
Cygnet Increases Shipments Of Its InfiniDISC DVD/CD Jukebox
Cygnet Storage Solutions has increased its shipping volume of DVD-RAM drives that are manufactured by Hitachi America, Ltd. Since the introduction of Cygnet's InfiniDISC DVD/CD Jukebox, DVD-RAM technology has been a key component to providing a low cost and high-capacity optical disc-based storage solution. Cygnet was the first jukebox manufacturer to introduce and ship a DVD-RAM based jukebox. Since September of 1998, the use of Hitachi's GF-1050 DVD-RAM drives has offered a reliable way to retrieve information from CD and DVD titles housed within a single unit as well as provide storage for timely and critical data to backup a server's hard drive. ""The popularity of such multimedia applications as desktop and web publishing, photo editing and video production along with traditional document imaging and hard drive backup make DVD-RAM jukeboxes ideal storage devices,"" says Jim Kaufmann, Director of General Sales in the Optical Storage Group of Hitachi America, Ltd. ""Cygnet's InfiniDISC Jukebox provides a proven way for data to be centrally located and accessible to any user on a network."" Cygnet's InfiniDISC can integrate up to six Hitachi DVD-RAM drives to access single-sided DVD-RAM media with capacities of 2.6GB each. It can read all currently available 120-cm optical disc formats, including single and multi-layer DVD-ROM, DVD-R and DVD-Video as well as prerecorded and writable CDs including CD-ROM, CD-R/RW, CD Audio and Video CD. DVD-RAM recorded data can be transferred at a drive transfer rate of 1.38MB/s with a data access time of 210ms. ""Hitachi's investment in DVD-RAM is realized every time data is stored or accessed from the jukebox,"" says Wayne Augsburger, Cygnet's Vice President of Sales and Marketing. ""Cygnet has evaluated drives from other manufacturers but none of them could compare to the product quality and company commitment shown to us by Hitachi."" InfiniDISC pricing starts at $15,350 for a 250-disc and 2 DVD-RAM drive configuration and is sold by authorized Cygnet resellers. The InfiniDISC jukebox can be integrated with up to six drives including a choice of CD or DVD drives. Cygnet offers Jukebox-ready DVD-RAM media that has been fully tested to be compatible with Hitachi's DVD-RAM drives.