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OVER 50 CONTENT, CONSUMER ELECTRONICS AND TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES EMBRACE REALPLAYER 10 AND REAL 10 PLATFORM
Real 10 Offers Break-Through Advances in Media Player, Audio and Video Compression, and Digital Rights Management Technology
Endorsers Include ABCNews.com, IBM, Intel, and Texas Instruments
Consumer Electronics Show 2004, LAS VEGAS — January 7, 2004 — RealNetworks®, Inc. (NASDAQ: RNWK), today unveiled the revolutionary new Real™ 10 platform for creating, protecting and playing digital audio and video on PCs, consumer electronics devices and mobile devices. Offering break-through improvements in audio and video compression, unprecedented ability to deliver secure media to both PC and portable devices, and support for standards-based technology, the Real 10 platform enables consumers, content owners, and consumer electronics manufacturers to create and enjoy a new generation of premium digital media services.
"The new capabilities of RealPlayer® 10 provide consumers with great free and premium access to rich Internet media. To connect millions of RealPlayer consumers with the broadest selection of digital media, we are providing our business partners with Real 10, an open and extensible platform," said Martin Plaehn, executive vice president, RealNetworks, Inc. "Real 10 provides programming partners with industry leading audio and video fidelity and digital security as well as tremendous playback reach to and beyond the PC. Real 10 also provides our technology partners with software and technology access to build world class media products for consumers."
The Real 10 platform includes RealPlayer 10 with a built-in music store, RealAudio® 10, RealVideo® 10, Helix™ Producer 10 and Helix DRM 10. RealAudio 10 includes the standards-based AAC codec for high fidelity consumer music services, lossless compression technology for professional and archiving services, and discrete multichannel audio for true 5.1 audio experiences. RealVideo 10 supports HDTV resolution video at under 5 Mb/s. Rights holders now can combine RealAudio10 Multichannel with RealVideo 10 for true state-of-the-art digital cinema. RealProducer®10 enables content owners to encode media into RealAudio 10 and RealVideo 10.
Helix DRM 10 enables RealAudio 10 to reach a broader class of consumer electronics devices than previously possible from any Digital Rights Management (DRM) platform, including portable music devices as well as network-connected home devices that work with consumers’ home theatre and stereo systems. Completing the Real 10 platform, RealPlayer 10 provides consumers with the most comprehensive media player and music jukebox available, while also providing content owners with access to a mass market media player that they can use to deliver content created and protected by the industry’s leading compression and rights management technologies (see separate release).
The Real 10 platform is already being adopted by leading rights holders, including: broadcasters, motion picture studios and music labels, and technology partners, including: consumer electronics companies, semiconductor manufacturers and authoring tools companies. With core Real 10 technology available in software, hardware and firmware, consumer electronics manufacturers can integrate premium quality and secure audio and video into virtually every type of consumer device.
Industry Support
Over 50 companies and organizations ranging from content companies to consumer electronics manufacturers and technology partners, have today announced support for the Real 10 platform. The following content companies have announced they will create and deliver their programming in RealAudio 10 and RealVideo 10: ABCNews.com, BBC News, BMG Music, CNN.com, EMI Recorded Music, The FeedRoom Network, IFILM, NASCAR, Sony Music Entertainment, Starz Encore, U.S.O.C., Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and The Weather® Channel.
In addition, the following technology companies will be incorporating the Real 10 platform into their products: Accordant Technologies, Anystream, ARM, Atsana Semiconductor, Avid Technology, BridgeCo, CAC Media, Creative Labs, Digital5, Equator Technologies, GoVideo, Hitachi America, IBM, Implicit Networks, Intel, Lafette Electronics, Mediabolic, NEC Electronics America, Netgear, palmOne, Pinnacle, Popwire, PortalPlayer, Prismiq, Renesas, Rockford Corporation, Roku, Serious Magic, Sharp Corporation, Sigma Designs, Simple Devices, SMC Networks, Sorensen, STMicroelectronics, Sun Microsystems, Texas Instruments, Viaccess S.A., Viewcast and Virage.
Content Programming Partners
ABCNews.com
"We’re pleased to support the launch of the Real 10 platform. We believe this new platform will enhance the user experience for our ABC News On Demand subscribers," said Bernard Gershon, senior vice president and general manager for ABCNEWS.com. "Now ABC News Live users can pause a live stream of video or replay recent reports. This new ‘Live Pause’ feature further enables our viewers to tailor the viewing experience as they wish."
CNN
"We are pleased to support RealVideo 10," said Mitch Gelman, senior vice president and executive producer of CNN.com. "Viewers of CNN's high quality, comprehensive and timely video will continue to have unlimited and immediate access with the newest version of RealNetworks’ software without requiring a software update."
EMI Group
"RealNetworks is one of EMI’s longtime partners in the legal music market, and we’re happy to offer our artists’ songs to consumers through the newest version of the RealPlayer," said John Rose, executive vice president, EMI Group. "The RealPlayer 10 Music Store will help us reach an even wider audience of consumers, delivering the music they care about in the pristine fidelity they demand -- legal music has never sounded so good."
FeedRoom Network
"The Real guide is an important channel for driving consumer demand for The FeedRoom Network programming," said Jon Klein, CEO of The FeedRoom. "Our new partnership with RealNetworks and our increased presence on the new, redesigned RealGuide will provide even greater distribution for our content partners. We applaud RealNetworks on the many innovations they have built into their new products and services that will improve the consumer experience and further enable flexible business models for content providers."
IFILM
"IFILM’s audience - from moviegoers to video gamers to filmmakers - is extremely demanding about video quality, and RealVideo 10 offers the highest quality streaming we've seen to date," said Blair Harrison, EVP and Chief Technology Officer of IFILM. "We’re pleased today to announce the IFILM RealVideo 10 showcase, available from IFILM.com and the RealGuide."
NASCAR
"We're pleased to announce our support for RealVideo 10," said Scott Bailey, VP and Assistant GM of NASCAR.com. "RealNetworks’ technology has been the backbone of NASCAR.com's TrackPass subscription service since we launched in February 2002. With the launch of RealVideo 10, we can better serve our subscribers by providing them NASCAR content in the highest streaming quality available."
Starz Encore
"RealVideo 10 offers a clearly superior video experience that looks remarkable with high-action movie content," said John Beyler, senior vice president, technology operations for Starz Encore Group LLC. "We’re pleased to announce the availability of RealVideo 10 trailers in the new RealGuide and on the Starz web site at www.starzsuperpak.com."
The Weather Channel
"Every day, millions of consumers enjoy and count on The Weather Channel(r) to bring them exceptional online content," said Jody Fennell, vice president and general manager of broadband and mobile for The Weather Channel. "RealVideo 10 will deliver an improved streaming experience to our customers and has the potential to deliver significant bandwidth cost savings."
Technology Companies
Accordant Technologies
"Businesses and universities count on Accordent products to stream meetings, lectures and seminars in real-time or on-demand. With RealVideo 10 we get the same high quality as before, but the stream is 30% smaller. For customers using a dial up connection to watch a presentation, RealVideo 10 dramatically improves the experience!" said Jereme Pitts, Vice President, Accordent Technologies.
Anystream
"The world’s leading broadcasters rely on Agility to automate streaming media encoding around-the-clock," said Fady Lamaa, Anystream marketing vice president. "They demand the highest quality output and the latest formats so they can deliver the best possible media experience, most efficiently, to their viewers. We were impressed with the clarity of RealVideo 10, and our customers are looking forward to creating outstanding video quality with file sizes significantly smaller than before."
Equator Technologies
"Support of industry leading codecs is now a must for consumer OEMs who are building Internet connected devices. The improved media quality and breadth of capabilities of the Real 10 platform will be welcomed by OEMs and consumers alike," said John O’Donnell, co-founder and CTO of Equator Technologies, Inc. "We are pleased to announce support for RealAudio 10 and RealVideo 10 on our BSP-15 platform and we look forward to see many devices powered by Real 10 technologies."
Implicit Networks
"Implicit is committed to delivering the best digital content experiences to consumers via their PCs and their favorite portable devices. The ability to deliver great digital audio on multiple hardware platforms with complete DRM support is critical. The Real 10 platform provides us with the broad support for hardware platforms, video and audio formats as well as a versatile DRM solution for premium content. We have worked closely with RealNetworks on our new Portable Media Player."
Intel
"By collaborating with RealNetworks our combined efforts will enable OEMs to deliver extremely versatile and secure portable media players," said Peter Green, GM of Intel's Extended Computing Division. "RealAudio 10, RealVideo 10 and Helix DRM for Devices all take advantage of Intel's Xscale microarchitecture that provides high performance and low battery consumption, to deliver maximum value to the end user".
Pinnacle
"Quality, bandwidth efficiency, and wide audience reach are three important metrics our broadcast and professional customers consider with when choosing an output format," said Greg Lowitz, Vice President of Marketing, Network Solutions Group, Pinnacle Systems. "RealVideo 10 and RealAudio 10 excel on all three fronts. We’re excited to continue our long-standing development relationship with RealNetworks to include RealAudio 10 and RealVideo 10 in future Pinnacle Systems’ products."
Popwire
"Popwire Technology provides an industrial strength digital media coding suite for broadcasters, media, ISPs and mobile operators who deal with large amounts of content. Real has played a key role in the multimedia revolution on the Internet, and we are very pleased to now support RealNetworks’ RealAudio 10 and RealVideo 10 codecs in our Mac OS X product range." says Robert Ekström, CEO of Popwire Technology, (www.popwire.com).
PortalPlayer
"Real is delivering an outstanding technology suite to the downloadable content market," said Michael Maia, vice president of sales and marketing for PortalPlayer, Inc. "The Real 10 platform fits perfectly with our efforts to enable consumers to access the highest quality music, audio and imaging online. PortalPlayer is excited to work with RealNetworks to bring multimedia what was once only available through a PC, to a wide range of portable consumer electronics devices."
Serious Magic
"Visual Communicator Pro enables anyone to easily create professional-looking video presentations in just minutes," said Stephan Bouchard, executive vice president of Serious Magic. "RealVideo 10, the next step in RealNetworks’ impressive streaming technology, will allow online video presentations that are even more effective and economical for everyday use throughout businesses, education and government."
Sorenson Media
"We pride ourselves on being a leader in delivering high-quality, easy-to-use video compression technologies," said Matt Cupal, Senior Vice-President of Business Development and Strategy at Sorenson Media. "Our Sorenson Squeeze Compression Suite is the most intuitive compression tool on the market providing the highest quality video compression available for Web and CD. By supporting RealAudio 10 and RealVideo 10 in Sorenson Squeeze we will continue to lead the market. With these additions to our upcoming releases for both Windows and Mac OS X, our customers will be thrilled with the increased quality and the thirty percent savings bandwidth delivered by RealVideo 10."
Texas Instruments
"The Real 10 platform will positively impact the delivery and use of digital media to wired and portable devices," said Chris Schairbaum, general manager, Portable Audio and Infotainment, Texas Instruments. "As a leader in DSP-based embedded processors for consumer electronics, TI is pleased to support Real 10 on our digital media, portable audio and OMAP platforms. The programmability of TI solutions means that OEMs who have deployed previous versions of RealPlayer on one of our platforms will already have Real 10 enabled devices ready for upgrade or 2004 product release requirements."
Via Licensing
"Via Licensing is pleased that RealNetworks has licensed MPEG-4 AAC for inclusion in RealAudio 10," said Andrew Fischer, Director of Licensing Business Development at Via Licensing Corporation. "RealNetworks is the latest in a string of high-profile technology companies that have recently adopted the MPEG-4 AAC standard".
ViewCast
"We're very excited about the next generation RealAudio 10 and RealVideo 10 formats," said George Platt, President and CEO, ViewCast Corporation. "Customers of our award-winning Osprey capture cards have known for years that ‘Osprey’ and ‘RealVideo’ go hand-in-hand as synonymous terms for the best quality video in the industry. We’re proud to now support RealAudio 10 and RealVideo 10 in our Osprey capture card line, as well as in our versatile Niagara streaming media systems."
Virage
"Our customers count on Virage products to encode and stream media for a wide variety of audiences," explains Bradley Horowitz, CTO of Virage. "We are excited about RealAudio 10 including the new 5.1 Multichannel and RealAudio Lossless modes that will enable us to offer even more audio options to our customers."
Real 10 platform availability
For programming partners looking to drive their business, see more information on the Real 10 platform at www.realnetworks.com.
For technology partners looking at add Real 10 platform components to their products, including the new RealAudio and RealVideo 10 codecs, the Helix Producer SDK and the Helix DRM can be obtained from www.helixcommunity.org.
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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