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NEW KEYLABS REPORT INDICATES CONSUMERS OVERWHELMINGLY PREFER REALVIDEO TO WINDOWS MEDIA AND MPEG-4
Consumers Chose RealVideo 10 for Image Quality, Smoother Motion and Overall Experience By A Factor of 3:1
SEATTLE, WA February 5, 2004 — RealNetworks®, Inc. (Nasdaq: RNWK), the leading creator of digital media services and software, today announced that testing demonstrates consumers prefer RealVideo® to Windows Media and MPEG-4. The results of an independent test conducted by KeyLabs™ concluded that even when encoded at a 30% lower bitrate than Windows Media Video 9, consumers prefer RealVideo 10 by a 3:1 margin. Further, when compared to MPEG-4 and Windows Media Video 9 at the same bitrate, consumers prefer RealVideo 10 overall. These findings show that premium quality video can be delivered at significantly lower bitrates, thus enabling cost savings for content providers and improved video experiences for consumers.
"KeyLabs’ independent study confirms that RealVideo 10 delivers the most compelling digital video experience yet," said Sherman Griffin, director, Marketing, RealNetworks, Inc. "Consumers are very impressed with the overall quality of RealVideo 10, while content providers are enthusiastic about the bandwidth and infrastructure savings that result from offering the same quality video experience of other codecs but using 30% less bandwidth."
RealVideo 10, introduced at CES 2004, offers broadcast quality video to broadband users both on the PC and on networked devices in the home. RealVideo 10 supports HDTV resolution video at fewer than 5 Mbps, and provides DVD quality, at bitrates lower than 1 Mbps. Content producers can combine RealVideo 10 with RealAudio®10 Multichannel to produce a true state-of-the-art discrete multichannel surround sound digital cinema experience. RealProducer®10 enables content owners to encode media into RealAudio 10 and RealVideo 10.
KeyLabs surveyed more than 100 consumers to develop their research report. Consumers were shown true to life video programming such as news, sports, and entertainment content encoded with different video codecs and at varying bitrates. Industry standard ISO-compliant content was also used. Testing compared the most recent and available video codecs from RealNetworks, Microsoft, and using an MPEG-4 ASP implementation. More information and KeyLabs’ full test report can be found at http://www.keylabs.com/results/realnetworks/vidperf10.shtml. KeyLabs is the IT industry’s premier technology assurance solution provider.
For More Information:
Lisa Strong, RealNetworks, (206) 892-6585, lstrong@real.com
ABOUT REALNETWORKS INC.
RealNetworks, Inc. is the leading creator of digital media services and software including the award-winning Rhapsody Internet jukebox service and RealPlayer 10, the first product to integrate finding, organizing, buying, playing and managing digital audio and video in a single product. Consumers can access and experience audio/video programming and download RealNetworks’ consumer software at http://www.real.com. Broadcasters, network operators, media companies and enterprises use RealNetworks’ products and services to create and deliver digital media to PCs, mobile phones and consumer electronics devices. RealNetworks’ systems and corporate information is located at http://www.realnetworks.com.
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