Crest National and Philips Partner to Bring SACD Hybrid Disc Manufacturing to the U.S.

Royal Philips Electronics and Crest National, a leader in the film,video and optical media industries, today announced a partnershipagreement to develop a Super Audio CD (SACD) hybrid disc productionline to be installed in Crest National’s replication facilitiesin Hollywood, CA, USA. This is the first step of the agreement tojointly develop hybrid SACD production lines, and to roll out SACD intoa mass-market proposition. The production line is scheduled to beinstalled this summer, with full production by autumn of this year. Thefirst line will have a production capacity of 3 million SACD hybriddiscs a year with more lines to follow.

This SACD hybrid disc production line will be the first to beestablished in USA and will increase the available hybrid discmanufacturing capacity to meet the rapidly increasing demand for thisnew medium. The agreement also includes post-production activities inSACD authoring.

"Philips is pleased that SACD hybrid disc production will now beinstalled by one of the leading disc replicators and post productionfacilities in the world," says Jos Bruins, Philips' Marketing Directorfor the Super Audio CD format. "This is an important part of the nextphase of the roll out of SACD into the mass market."

"Crest National is pleased to be taking a leading role in SACDhybrid disc manufacturing," says Ronald E. Stein, President, CrestNational. "We welcome the opportunity to partner with Philips to bringthis exiting new medium to North America. It is a further reflection ofCrest's experience and expertise in implementing new technologies andbringing high quality products to the world's most demandingcustomers."

SACD, Super Audio CD, developed by Philips and Sony, is theevolution to the audio CD offering ultimate sound quality in bothstereo and multi-channel surround while maintaining complete backwardscompatibility with all existing audio CD players. It uses the latestDSD (Direct Stream Digital) technology that delivers superior soundreproduction quality, with the ability to render all the nuances of alive performance. SACD has wide industry support from professionalaudio companies, as well as major music labels. There are about 650SACD discs available worldwide with over 1000 titles expected to beavailable by the end of the year.