Keslow Television - Broadcast Video Equipment

KESLOW TELEVISION PURCHASES SONY MAV-555 DIGITAL DISK RECORDER FOR SPORTS AND LIVE PROGRAMMING RENTAL MARKET

PARK RIDGE, N.J., July 24, 2001 - Keslow Television is the first rental house to purchase Sony's MAV-555 digital disk recorders for its rental clientele who specialize in live events, news and sports programming.

"Our customers are expressing a lot of interest in digital disk recorders," said Jim Palmer, vice president and general manager of Keslow Television. Keslow Television is the leading supplier of VTRs in the country and handle HDCAM®, Digital Betacam®, IMX MPEG®, and several other tape formats. It is the first U.S. based rental company to purchase this product. "Keslow Television has pledged to provide its customers with leading edge technology, and the `Triple Nickel' certainly is helping us accomplish this goal."

"Digital disk recording is rapidly becoming a staple of any live production," said Bob Ott, vice president of marketing for professional VTRs and storage products at Sony Electronics' Broadcast and Professional Company. "The MAV-555 is helping broadcasters to bring content to air faster then ever and at a more cost-effective rate."

According to Ott, the MAV-555 is being used for some of today's premier sporting events and news applications, including the recent summer games in Sydney, Australia, the 2000 World Series, 2001 NASCAR and CBS News. With four channels of simultaneous recording, high-definition capability and gigabit Ethernet coming in the fall, the MAV digital disk recorder has multiple applications from live sports to integration into an editing or news environment.

Broadcast Sports is using the disk recorders to store in-car footage of NASCAR races. The car's video output is recorded directly into the MAV-555, instead of using individual VTRs, allowing for continuous recording while using other footage for editing.

CBS News uses the MAV-555 to store bumpers and teasers for the Evening News with Dan Rather on the disk recorder. The network also uses the MAV-555 for looping background on its news broadcasts. "We are not limited to just graphics, since we can use the MAV-555 for other applications just like a VTR," said Philip Selby of CBS News.

HDNET employees the MAV-555 for the first high definition instant replays of live-sporting events. "It partners well with tape from a VTR using a seemless DNF controller," said Phil Garvin of HDNET.

The recorders were also at the heart of the 2000 Summer Games' broadcast facility in Sydney for NBC, where they created a formidable anchor for the NBC's 22 linear editing suites.

"We chose the MAV-555 because we knew it could speed up our editing,'' said Dave Mazza, vice president of engineering for NBC Olympics Inc., a division of NBC that handles all Olympic planning for the network. Also important was the MAV-555's ability to work with Sony's new Super Motion camera (five cameras were on location) and shot-box technology and controllers provided by DNF Controls.

``The picture quality from the Super Motion and MAV-555 playback were excellent,'' Mr. Mazza said. ``The MAV-555's mix-effects card simultaneously dissolved with four channels of audio. It's simple to cue up graphics animation and use it in edit because you don't have to retrieve, load and sync up tape. And the learning curve is very short because the control panel is just like a VTR's.

``Producers were thrilled their teams could begin edits before they stopped recording,'' he added. ``Editors could start two hours earlier than they would have otherwise because they didn't have to wait for a 90-minute tape to finish and rewind.''

Sony Electronics' Broadcast and Professional Company (BPC) provides advanced products and systems for a variety of professional and broadcast markets, including production, corporate, industrial, government, security, medical and education. Sony offers a variety of digital products and systems designed to facilitate the transition to digital technologies and the emerging broadband network era. Sony products, systems and services include those for broadcast acquisition, production, storage, data management, system integration, digital imaging, digital printing, large and small venue display, and projection needs. Sony Electronics recorded annual sales approaching $14 billion in the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2001.

Editor's Note: For press releases and digital images, please visit www.sony.com/news and www.sony.com/professional for customer product information. More information regarding the nearest Sony authorized dealer or service location is available by calling 1-800-686-SONY.