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New Version of Winamp Media Player Offers MPEG aacPlus Ripping From Coding Technologies; Winamp V5.1 Enables Consumers to Quadruple Music Storage Capacity of PCs, Music Enabled Mobile Phones and Portable Music Devices

Posted on: Monday, 12 September 2005, 09:00 CDT

Coding Technologies, a leading provider of audio compression technologies for broadcast, mobile, and the Internet, announced today that the latest version of AOL's popular Winamp(R) media player (v5.1) - now available at http://www.winamp.com - incorporates Coding Technologies' MPEG aacPlus(TM) as the default encoding format. The new Winamp player with aacPlus enables users to dramatically reduce the storage requirements by a factor of four when "ripping" content to their music libraries so they can store more content on their local computers and on compatible mobile phones. On average, more than 500 songs in aacPlus format fit on a typical 512MB phone MultiMediaCard.

In addition, this new Winamp player v5.1 supports the 5.1 Surround Sound capabilities inherent within aacPlus. As a demonstration of this feature, this latest version of the Winamp player ships with a track from the artist KAJE - the recent Grand Prize winner of the Internet Surround Music Project. Further aacPlus surround music content is available to Winamp users at http://www.tuner2.com/.

"Our goal is to make sure that the Winamp player is the best of breed for true media enthusiasts," said Art Spivy, Executive Director, Program Management at America Online. "We're pleased to work with companies like Coding Technologies to enable listeners to get more value from their personal music library on their PCs and mobile phones."

"We estimate that 20 million aacPlus-enabled phones will ship in 2005 - a number that will easily quadruple next year," said David Frerichs, Vice President and US General Manager for Coding Technologies. "This release of Winamp serves this rapidly growing market with an excellent solution for aacPlus encoding."

Winamp v5.1 Surround Edition is available now for download from http://www.winamp.com/. Launched in January 1998, Winamp is the world's leading advanced media player application with more than 48 million monthly worldwide users(a). Winamp supports high fidelity playback of CD, MP3, MPEG, WMA, WMV, NSV, aacPlus and other popular digital audio and video formats, custom appearances called skins, visualizations and audio and video effect plug-ins. Winamp (http://www.winamp.com) and SHOUTcast (http://www.shoutcast.com) were acquired by America Online, Inc. in May 1999 and are part of AOL(R) Music's leading offerings. AOL Music (http://www.aolmusic.com) reaches more than 26 million music fans a month(b) through a rich array of programming, products and services that make it easy to discover, experience, listen to and buy music online.

(a)MediaMetrix Worldwide, July 2005

(b)MediaMetrix US, July 2005

About Coding Technologies' MPEG aacPlus:

aacPlus is AAC coupled with Coding Technologies' patented Spectral Band Replication (SBR) and Parametric Stereo technologies. SBR and Parametric Stereo are groundbreaking audio compression techniques that dramatically reduce the size (bit rate) of digital audio files while maintaining the same audio quality. In third-party listening tests, consumers found comparable quality between music files encoded at 128Kbps in MP3 versus those encoded at 32Kbps with aacPlus. This level of efficiency fundamentally changes the economics of digital music delivery and enables new applications in mobile and digital broadcasting. Coding Technologies' aacPlus has been adopted in standards from 3GPP, DVB, DVD Forum, MPEG, and others and is quickly becoming the defacto-standard for mobile handsets worldwide.

aacPlus delivers streaming and downloadable 5.1 multichannel audio at 128 Kbps, near transparent stereo at 32 Kbps, excellent quality stereo at 24 Kbps, and great quality for mixed content down to 16 Kbps and below.

About Coding Technologies

Coding Technologies is a privately held company with offices in Sweden, Germany, and Silicon Valley. Founded in 1997 in Stockholm, the company later merged with a spin-off of the renowned Fraunhofer Institute in Germany, the inventor of MP3. Coding Technologies' customers include America Online, KDDI, iBiquity Digital, LG, mmO2, Nokia, Real Networks, Samsung, SK Telecom, Thomson, and Texas Instruments, and XM Satellite Radio.

Coding Technologies provides the best audio compression for mobile, broadcasting, and Internet. SBR(TM) (Spectral Band Replication) from Coding Technologies is a backward and forward compatible method to enhance the efficiency of any audio codec; putting the "PRO" in mp3PRO and the "Plus" in aacPlus. Parametric Stereo from Philips and Coding Technologies again nearly doubles the efficiency of audio codecs for stereo signals at low bit rates. Products from Coding Technologies are fundamental enablers of open standards such as 3GPP, MPEG, Digital Radio Mondiale, HD Radio, DVD and HD-DVD.

For more info visit http://www.codingtechnologies.com.

Source: Business Wire

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