HEURIS and Panasonic Demonstrate End-to-End HD Video Solution

HEURIS and Panasonic Demonstrate End-to-End HD Video Solution for
Content Creation, Business to Business, E-Cinema Markets

HEURIS Fills HDTV Content Creation Gap with World’s First QuickTime to HDTV Software Encoder

NAB, Las Vegas, Nevada, April 23, 2001 — HEURIS, makers of the most widely used professional MPEG encoding software, MPEG Power Professional, will demonstrate the latest in their line of award-winning MPEG encoding products in Panasonic’s booth at the National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas this week. HEURIS’ new product, MPEG Power Professional—HD, is the world’s first software product to encode QuickTime files directly to ATSC HDTV resolution 19.2Mbps MPEG. Panasonic’s "HD Commerce" demonstration will showcase MPEG Power Professional--HD along with other products from Panasonic, Apple and Pinnacle operating with 720 line progressive HD video. The demonstration will show how a content developer can shoot, edit, and encode video for playback via Panasonic’s new DVD-RAM based HD PC server to a SXGA resolution digital projection system or plasma screen.

HD (or High Definition) is a high-resolution video format that produces signals much clearer than traditional NTSC or PAL television signals. HD video displayed on large format plasma screens or projection systems are now commonly seen in kiosks, point of purchase displays, entertainment parks, corporate lobbies, and other locations where high-quality, high-impact video is of paramount importance.

"High Definition video is starting to pop up everywhere," said HEURIS Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Rey Umali. "The phenomenal quality and intensity of the picture make it an ideal medium for corporate and entertainment displays. Our customers have been asking for a relatively low cost, software HD video encoding system and we’re happy to comply."

The demonstration will show the HD desktop video production process from start to finish including shooting video with Panasonic’s new AJ-HDC27V variable frame rate HD Cinema camera, editing the video on an Apple G4 computer with Final Cut Pro and the CineWave card from Pinnacle, encoding the video using HEURIS’ new MPEG Power Professional—HD software, transferring the encoded MPEG high definition video stream to a PC via Panasonic’s DVD-RAM drive and playing the video off of the DVD-RAM drive, via an internal DTV decoder card, onto a large format Panasonic HD plasma screen.

"Content developers have been looking for a complete HD video solution, but at an affordable cost" said Panasonic, Broadcast Vice President of Marketing, Stuart English. "We asked HEURIS to participate in this demonstration because their unique technology allows users to convert directly from QuickTime files to HD resolution MPEG 2 video streams that we can then use with a PC based DTV decoding card and DVD-RAM technology to bring a very low cost but very high quality HD resolution business to consumer video distribution system to the market".

"We saw a definite need among content developers for a simple yet flexible tool for HD encoding, and that’s exactly what we’ve developed" said HEURIS President, Brian Quandt. "MPEG Power Professional—HD helps to fill a gap in the HD content development process--allowing HEURIS, Panasonic and the other partners to demonstrate a clear, proven path from shooting to editing to viewing HD materials."

Availability

MPEG Power Professional--HD is expected to ship early in Q4 of 2001. MPEG Power Professional—HD will be available via our worldwide network of resellers and distributors or directly from HEURIS. For the latest information, including a brief HD white paper, please see our website at www.heuris.com/HD.

About HEURIS

Headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, HEURIS is the developer of the most widely used professional software MPEG encoder, MPEG Power Professional™. The award-winning, cross-platform software is the first MPEG encoder to deliver the features and encoding quality demanded by professionals, without the expensive hardware. MPEG Power Professional is used by professional video editors and other creators of digital content to convert video, film, animation, special effects and graphics clips into MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 streams. For more information on HEURIS and MPEG Power Professional visit www.heuris.com.

About Panasonic

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd manufactures the PANASONIC DVD-RAM OEM drive. (NYSE: MC), one of the world's leading producers of CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives and other DVD technology-based products. The drives are marketed by the company's principle North American subsidiary, Matsushita Electric Corp. of America (MECA). For more information on the Panasonic DVD-RAM OEM drive and media, contact Panasonic Industrial Company, 1600 McCandless Drive, Milpitas, CA 95035; (408) 945-5600, FAX (408) 262-4214, E-mail berzind@panasonic.com. Or, visit the company's Web site at www.panasonic.com/oemdvd-ram. For more information on Panasonic-branded DVD-RAM drives and media, contact Panasonic Document Imaging Company, Two Panasonic Way 7D-9, Secaucus, NJ 07030 (201) 392-6355, www.panasonic.com/storage (E-mail truppim@panasonic.com) In Canada, contact Panasonic Canada, Ambler Drive, Mississauga, Ontario L4W 2T3, Canada; (905) 238-2254, FAX (905) 238-2414, E-mail rkwong@panasonic.ca