CBC launches new channel on Stage6; DivX obtains rights to a wide range of premium CBC content such as Josh Groban concerts, CBC News: The National, and the DVD “Torino 2006: Canada’s Quest for Success”
San Diego–March 14, 2007–DivX, Inc. (NASDAQ:DIVX) and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Canada’s national public broadcaster and one of its largest cultural institutions, today announced a partnership to bring premium international content to audiences around the world in the DivX® video format.
According to the licensing agreement, CBC has launched a channel on DivX Stage6–an online video sharing community site–featuring premium and promotional international content including an interview with singing sensation Josh Groban, reports from around the world from CBC’s flagship news program, CBC News: The National, along with entertainment, fashion and unique short films which will be added to the site weekly. To view the CBC channel on Stage6, visit www.stage6.com/CBC.
In addition to the CBC channel on Stage6, DivX has obtained the exclusive rights for Samsung Electronics Canada, a manufacturer of DivX Certified DVD players, to bundle more than 20 hours of footage from the CBC DVD “Torino 2006: Canada’s Quest for Success” with its new DVD recorder that will be available at major consumer electronics retailers across Canada in March. Programming includes every Canadian medal-winning performance in its entirety, extensive highlights of Opening and Closing Ceremonies, “Ciao! Torino” (CBC vignettes featuring people, places and culture of Torino), “Life After a Final,” as well as interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, bloopers and athlete bios.
DivX makes it easy to compress the file size of video content while maintaining high quality. The CBC content is encoded by DivX and protected by the company’s digital rights management (DRM) technology.
“We are pleased to license premium CBC content encoded in the high-quality, secure DivX format,” said Bob Kerr, Vice President of Business Development, CBC. “By creating a channel on Stage6, we are able to reach a broader audience as our viewers re-live the excitement of their favorite CBC shows in a format compatible with millions of DivX Certified consumer electronics devices from major manufacturers.”
“CBC is not just a media company. They are truly a pioneer and share our goal of building a better media future,” said Kevin Hell, CXO, Partners & Licensing, at DivX, Inc. “With CBC, we have expanded our global reach by making premium content such as Josh Groban and the 2006 Olympic Winter Games more accessible to viewers worldwide.”
In addition to creating a high-quality viewing experience, DivX empowers consumers to take their favorite videos beyond the PC. Content in the DivX video format is easily transferred among an entire ecosystem of DivX Certified devices and platforms including DVD players, portable media players, in-car DVD players and more.
About the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
CBC/Radio-Canada is Canada’s national public broadcaster and one of its largest cultural institutions. With 28 services offered on Radio, Television, the internet, satellite radio, digital audio, as well as through its record and music distribution service and wireless WAP and SMS messaging services, CBC/Radio-Canada is available how, where, and when Canadians want. Through this array of activities, CBC/Radio-Canada brings diverse regional and cultural perspectives into the daily lives of Canadians in English, French and eight aboriginal languages, in nine languages on its international Radio service, RCI, and in eight languages on its web-based radio service RCI viva, a service for recent and aspiring immigrants to Canada.
About Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2005 parent company sales of US$56.7 billion and net income of US$7.5 billion. Employing approximately 128,000 people in over 90 offices in 51 countries, the company consists of five main business units: Digital Appliance Business, Digital Media Business, LCD Business, Semiconductor Business and Telecommunication Network Business. Recognized as one of the fastest growing global brands, Samsung Electronics is a leading producer of digital TVs, memory chips, mobile phones, and TFT-LCDs. For more information, please visit www.samsung.com.
About DivX, Inc.
DivX creates products and services designed to improve the experience of media. Our first product offering was a video compression-decompression software library, or codec, which has been actively sought out and downloaded over 200 million times in the last four years, including over 60 million times during the last twelve months. We have since built on the success of our codec with other consumer software, including the DivX Player application, which is distributed from our website, www.divx.com. We also license our technologies to consumer hardware device manufacturers and certify their products to ensure the interoperable support of DivX-encoded content. In addition to technology licensing to consumer hardware device manufacturers, we currently generate revenue from software licensing, advertising and content distribution.
Forward-Looking Statements
Statements in this press release that are not strictly historical in nature constitute “forward-looking statements.” Such statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding DivX’s visibility within the investment community. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause DivX’s actual results to be materially different from historical results or from any results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors include, but are not limited to, the risk that customer use of DivX technology may not grow as anticipated, the risk that anticipated market opportunities may not materialize at expected levels, or at all, the risk that the Company’s activities may not result in the growth of profitable revenue, risks and uncertainties related to the maintenance and strength of the DivX brand; DivX’s ability to penetrate existing and new markets; the effects of competition; DivX’s dependence on its licensees and partners; the effect of intellectual property rights claims; and other factors discussed in the “Risk Factors” section of DivX’s quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on November 13, 2006. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. DivX is providing this information as of the date of this release and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.