PARIS, FRANCE (FEBRUARY 18, 2000) -- Sonic Solutions announced and will be showing later this week at the Audio Engineering Society Convention (AES) in Paris that it has collaborated with Pioneer to successfully create the world's first DVD-Audio discs with SonicStudio HD, Sonic's professional audio workstation, and DVD Creator AV, the DVD-Audio version of Sonic's DVD-Video production system. The Pioneer DVD-Audio disc demonstrates the advanced features of the new format - high-resolution sound, graphics, and interactivity - and is being shown at this year's AES convention.

Pioneer will demonstrate a new generation of universal DVD players, recently released in Japan, using a DVD-Audio disc that was produced with Sonic's authoring system. Some of the contents were encoded using Meridian Lossless Packing technology (MLP) for the highest-quality surround sound experience.

"In designing the disc that would be bundled with our players, we placed the greatest emphasis on audio quality to ensure that our customers would enjoy a listening experience that could not be matched by traditional audio compact disc or even DVD-Video," said Shunichi Ichikawa, General Manager of Research and Development Division of Pioneer Electronic Corporation. "Sonic has played a key role in allowing us to successfully introduce the first DVD-Audio title, and we are enthusiastic about our collaboration."

"We are very pleased that our partnership with Pioneer, one of the audio industry's most respected companies, has resulted in successfully bringing DVD-Audio to market with the world's very first full-feature DVD-Audio disc," said Robert Doris, President of Sonic Solutions. "Pioneer's input has been invaluable in helping Sonic to refine our DVD-Audio production systems, which are fully compatible with the current DVD-Audio format. We believe that by providing comprehensive authoring tools for DVD-Audio, we can help create new opportunities for the audio community and an exciting, new listening experience for consumers everywhere."

About DVD-Audio

DVD-Audio is the new audio format that builds on the success of the hugely popular DVD-Video format. More than two years in the making, DVD-Audio is the result of close collaboration among major recording companies, consumer electronics manufacturers and technology suppliers. The format incorporates breathtakingly accurate audio reproduction by supporting sampling rates of 96kHz and 192kHz with up to 24 bits of information per sample (compared to the CD standard of 44.1kHz and 16 bits per sample).

With DVD-Audio, full-resolution audio can be presented in stereo or in any channel combination up to six-channel surround. Audio programs can be accessed interactively and presented along with visual material including menus, slides, and text. Because of the enormous bandwidths involved in high-resolution audio, DVD-Audio incorporates an innovative coding scheme developed by Meridian Audio, called Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP). With MLP it is possible to use full-resolution, 24-bit, 96kHz audio on all six channels of a surround presentation even though the overall bandwidth of the original master tracks would exceed the bandwidth available in a standard DVD disc.

Sonic Solutions has created the industry's first and only DVD-Audio production system, Sonic DVD Creator AV, which includes SonicStudio HD, Sonic's system for high-density audio production and Sonic's DVD Producer for authoring DVD-Audio and DVD-Video titles. SonicStudio HD is built upon the innovative new HDSP(TM) Processing Architecture and supports editing and mixing of multi-channel audio at sample rates from 44.1kHz to 192kHz. DVD Creator allows authoring of DVD-Audio titles with real-time preview of all the elements in a DVD-Audio title - multi-channel high-resolution audio, menus, slide shows and video.

About Sonic Solutions

Based in Marin County, California, Sonic Solutions designs and manufactures DVD publishing systems used by video, audio and multimedia professionals around the world to prepare music, video, film, graphics and entertainment software. Sonic Solutions can be contacted on the web at: http://www.sonic.com.