IBM is First Member of Motion Video Consortium

Group will Test Compliance to Video Compression Standards

ATLANTA, April 12, 1995 . . . IBM today announced its membership in the
newly reformed OM-1 MPEG Consortium, an industry group whose goal is to
help standardize the development and deployment of technology and
applications that use compressed digital video.

The OM-1 MPEG (after Motion Pictures Experts Group) Consortium will bring
together developers of MPEG chips, decoders, encoders, applications,
application tools, hardware platforms and operating systems to cooperate
on the use and integration of their various MPEG-related products.

"The ever-increasing demand for high-quality video and interactivity for
training and marketing applications as well as consumer games,
movie-making and broadcast applications, has left a serious need for
strong digital video specifications. MPEG has the capability to meet these
demands," said IBM's Steve Raber, director of Multimedia Consulting and
Solutions.

"As the first official member of the OM-1 Consortium, we are continuing our
leadership role in helping to bring about these standards to assist the
international marketplace and, specifically, to help our customers."

IBM research has shown that integrating multiple MPEG decoders into a given
application is confusing, complicated and time consuming. The OM-1 effort
is expected to decrease the problems associated with MPEG application and
title development for multiple hardware platforms and the various
operating systems.

According to Steve Wilkinson, who represents IBM on the Consortium, the
OM-1 group will test and certify that the product -- from chips to
adapters, and software to system platforms -- is compliant with the OM-1
standards.

"IBM recognized the fact that there was no effort to provide a
cross-operating system application programming interface for the MPEG
compression standard," said Steve Hancock of the IBM OS/2 Warp development
team, IBM Personal Software Products Division. "We know there are benefits
to developers of being able to deliver motion video applications on
various system platforms and across multiple operating systems."

Hancock is chairing the OM-1 Consortium's cross- operating system committee
and is working with the Consortium to enhance the existing support for
MPEG on the OS/2 Warp operating system. MPEG support was included in all
versions of OS/2 Warp.

"By becoming the first fee-paying member, IBM has helped legitimize the
OM-1 Consortium's efforts to integrate MPEG technology internationally,"
said David McCombe, Consortium co-chairperson. "IBM's experience with
international standards has proven to be invaluable in our work toward
proliferation of MPEG technology and applications in the worldwide
commercial and consumer marketplace."

Through its Interactive Media unit in Atlanta, IBM intends to leverage its
involvement in the Consortium to provide clear direction and consulting
services to its clients regarding MPEG technologies.

The Interactive Media group develops MPEG-compatible applications for
training, presentations, kiosks, sales force transformation, etc. They
also operate one of the largest video compression facilities in the world,
compressing MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video for major cable trials and feature
films, and are equipped to handle most professional video and tape formats
in both NTSC and PAL.

In addition, IBM Microelectronics Division recently reinforced IBM's
commitment to the MPEG standard by announcing the world's first
commercially available MPEG-2 encoder chip. The MPEG-2 chip will help film
makers, broadcasters, office workers, etc., be more cost-efficient in
their varying uses of digital video. The Micro- electronics Division also
announced an MPEG-2 decoder chip aimed at the consumer electronics
market.

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