Panasonic and Sony Expand HD Digital Video Camera

Tokyo (ots/PRNewswire) - Panasonic, the brand name for which
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. is known and Sony
Corporation (hereafter Sony) announced jointly today the commencement
of licensing for "AVCHD," the high definition (HD) digital video
camera recorder format, as well as expansion of the format's
specifications.

Panasonic and Sony announced basic specifications for "AVCHD" on
May 11th this year, and since then have extensively promoted the
format throughout the industry while preparing for licensing. Then,
the two companies have decided to include memory cards (SD Memory
Card and Memory Stick) and hard disk drives as applicable recording
media of the format in addition to previously-announced 8cm DVD. This
is for the purpose of broadening the range of applicable media,
thereby allowing wide variety of products to be developed by various
manufacturers. The new specification was defined as "AVCHD" format
Version 1.0.

The two companies have also developed licensing programs for
playback appliances and PC software in addition to the one for video
cameras, so that environment for playing back AVCHD content will be
expanded. This will allow users to enjoy shooting high definition
footages with their camcorders and playing them back or editing them
on a wide range of products.

- Licensed Product Category for the "AVCHD" format and logo extend
to the following

1) AVCHD format and logo license for Video Cameras

2) AVCHD format and logo license for Players

3) AVCHD format license for PC Software

- For more information on "AVCHD" and licensing procedures:

Please visit the AVCHD Information Web Site
http://www.avchd-info.org/

Panasonic and Sony have been promoting this format extensively
throughout the industry as the new HD digital video camcorder format
best suited for the coming High Definition era and the following
companies have expressed their support for "AVCHD" to date.

Through these licensing programs, Panasonic and Sony will continue
promoting "AVCHD" in earnest, with a view to expanding the market for
consumer-use HD video camera.

Adobe Systems Incorporated

CANON INC.

CyberLink Corporation

InterVideo, Inc.

Nero AG

PIONEER CORPORATION

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO.,LTD.

SHARP CORPORATION

Sonic Solutions

Ulead Systems, Inc.

(In alphabetical order)

[Specifications for the "AVCHD" format Version 1.0 ]

Recording Media 8cm DVD media/
SD Memory Card/"Memory Stick"/
Hard Disk Drive
Video Signal 1080/60i 720/60p 480/60i 576/50i
1080/50i 720/50p
1080/24p 720/24p
Pixels (horizontal x 1920x1080 1280x720 720x480 720x576
vertical)
1440x1080
Aspect ratio 16:9 16:9 4:3, 16:9 4:3, 16:9
Compression technology MPEG-4 AVC/H.264
Luminance 74.25MHz 74.25MHz 13.5MHz 13.5MHz
sampling frequency 55.7MHz
Sampling structure 4:2:0
Quantifying bit number 8 bit (luminance/color contrast)
Audio Compression technology Dolby Digital (AC-3) Linear PCM
Bit rate after 64 - 640kbps 1.5Mbps (2 channels)
compression
Audio channels 1-5.1 channels 1-7.1 channels
System MPEG-2 Transport Stream
System bit rate -24Mbps
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Contact:
Panasonic: Panasonic Europe Ltd,
Brendon Gore,
Tel: +44-(0)208-899-2217,
Email: Brendon.Gore@eu.panasonic.com.
Sony Corporation: Corporate Communications,
Tel: +81-3-5448-2200, Sony Europe GmbH,
Sylvia Shin,
Tel: +49-30-2575-5156,
Email: Sylvia.Shin@eu.sony.com

ots Originaltext: Sony Corporation and Panasonic
Im Internet recherchierbar: http://www.presseportal.de

Contact:
Panasonic: Panasonic Europe Ltd, Brendon Gore, Tel:
+44-(0)208-899-2217, Email: Brendon.Gore@eu.panasonic.com. Sony
Corporation: Corporate Communications, Tel: +81-3-5448-2200, Sony
Europe GmbH, Sylvia Shin, Tel: +49-30-2575-5156, Email:
Sylvia.Shin@eu.sony.com