Young Minds Inc. Doubles DVD-R Recording Speeds, Slashes Prices

Press Release

Redlands, CA, July 27, 2001
Young Minds, Inc. (YMi) of Redlands, California today announced the immediate availability of its complete line of Studio DVD-Recording systems with double speed (2X) DVD Recorders from Pioneer. The new 2X recorders reduce recording times for full 4.7GB DVD-R discs from nearly an hour to less than thirty minutes, and can also record CD-R discs at 8x speeds. The new Studio systems are aggressively priced. MSRP for these systems has been reduced by as much as 50 percent from the single speed DVD-R systems they replace.

Studio systems that use the double speed DVD-R drive include DVD Studio™, PowerDVD Studio™, StudioX™, and MPS4+™. With the exception of DVD Studio, which is a manual-load system, all of the Studio systems are bundled with various disc autoloader options. These autoloader-equipped systems provide different capacities and capabilities that range from one to four DVD-R drives, from 50 to 120 disc batch processing, and include seamless disc label printing. Studio systems are complete data recording solutions that attach to virtually any server or workstation running a UNIX, Linux, or Windows NT operating system, and can be easily configured for network use.

"Young Mind's Studio systems represent a very powerful compliment to Pioneer's latest combination recordable drive," said Mike Mickes, Pioneer New Media Technologies, Inc. Senior Sales and Business Development Manager. "Combining the expandable and highly automated production features of Studio with the ability to record on CD-R and DVD-R media, presents the industry with a very powerful solution for managing, storing and distributing corporate data. With Young Mind's outstanding reputation in the data management industry, I'm very enthusiastic with regard to their latest product announcement," added Mickes.

"We have significantly altered the price to performance curve with the added speed and lower costs of these new systems," stated Jim Bolander, Young Minds' Vice President of Sales. "These market-leading solutions change the economics of DVD recording, making them perfect for many different data archival and distribution applications."

"Low cost discs that are compatible with the new drives are now widely available for about ten dollars," continued Bolander. "This brings storage costs down to a level comparable with CD-R, and will be of interest to anyone with large image or database files that need long term archival or a simple way to distribute the data. Companies that have delayed DVD equipment purchases due to the high cost of drives and media will be very eager to get their hands on these new Studio systems."

About Young Minds
Founded in 1989, Young Minds, Inc. (YMi) provides a complete line of network attached data libraries and network capable, cross-platform CD and DVD Recording systems. YMi pioneered CD-Recording and CD-ROM mass storage in the UNIX market, and continues to deliver the most innovative solutions that are reliable, cost-effective and easy to use. Andrew Young, Chairman and co-founder of the company, authored the Rock Ridge Interchange Protocols, which define additional functionality for ISO 9660 standard discs used in UNIX environments. Young Minds can be reached on the Internet at http://www.ymi.com or call 800-964-4964.

About Pioneer
As an industry leader in the digital marketplace, Pioneer New Media Technologies Inc., continues to provide the industry's most innovative technologies for professional and industrial business applications. World's first technologies introduced by Pioneer include recordable DVD-R drives, mass storage 100 and 700 disc DVD libraries, the first multifunctional optical MO and WORM drives, and the new combination DVD-R/RW and CD-R/RW recordable drive. In addition to being the leading supplier of recordable DVD-R and DVD-ROM drives to first tier OEM PC manufacturers, the optical systems division addresses customer applications in education, government, legal, banking, medical, insurance, finance, industrial and general business markets with their drive and mass storage solutions. For more information, contact Pioneer New Media Technologies, Inc. at 2265 E. 220th Street, Long Beach, Calif. 90810; phone (310) 952-2111 or (800) 444-6784; URL: www.pioneerelectronics.com.