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Beijing/China, July 8th 2008 - At today's BDA press conference in Beijing, Sony DADC announced
the start of Blu-ray Disc (BD) production in China and Australia. According to the group's
president, Dieter Daum, facility expansion at the Shanghai production site is nearing completion
and production start is scheduled for mid December 2008. At the Sydney site, BD replication is
scheduled to start in February 2009. The sites will offer replication of both BD25 and BD50,
meaning Blu-ray Discs with a 25 and 50 gigabyte storage capacity.
"Blu-ray Disc is the global industry standard for High Definition media and is growing
exponentially in Europe, North America and Asia," comments Dieter Daum. "China represents a massive
and strategically important market and our investments are intended to support Blu-ray's
establishment in this territory."
With a rapidly growing market penetration, Blu-ray Disc's potential as the next generation
successor to DVD is clear. From the earliest days of the format's creation, Sony DADC has been in
the vanguard of companies supporting its evolution. Since production started in 2006, Sony DADC has
shipped around 100 million Blu-ray Video Discs to the global market.
The company pioneered BD production by developing advanced BD manufacturing processes which
subsequently have been shared with 3rd party replicators through cooperation with line
manufacturers Oerlikon and Singulus. Sony DADC is now spearheading the development of BD LIVE, a
value-add feature of BD enabling online-connectivity and turning Blu-ray into a fully interactive
viewing experience. The development of a Burst Cutting Area functionality will add to this
experience through the unique identification and serialisation of the disc and its user.
To meet the growing demand for Blu-ray products and services, Sony DADC is now expanding its
strategic investment in the dynamic Asian market, in particular ramping up its BD manufacturing
capacity in China and Australia.
"Sony DADC is the leading Home Entertainment supplier of Hollywood studios in the Chinese
market, serving all Majors. Concerning Blu-ray, we already provide our customers with a BD
Authoring facility in Hong Kong and we will soon provide the same service in Sydney. Currently we
are expanding our Shanghai and Sydney facilities for Blu-ray Disc production" explains Dieter Daum.
The production floor space of the Chinese site will be expanded to 13,000m², the floor space of the
Australian site will be expanded from 12,150m² to 13,500m².
"Our stage one goal is to reach a monthly BD25 and BD50 production capacity of 500,000 units
in Shanghai by December and a monthly production capacity of 1,000,000 units in Sydney by February.
Further Blu-ray Disc production lines will be installed as needed" Daum adds.
About Sony DADC
Sony DADC is a leading disc and digital solution provider for the entertainment, education
and information industries, offering world-class optical media replication services, digital and
physical supply chain solutions and software services. The world's largest optical media production
network consists of twenty-seven optical media production, distribution and digital facilities
worldwide. Production facilities are located in Austria, UK, United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil,
India, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and China.
Contact:
Christina Schobesberger
Tel: +43 6246 880 281
christina.schobesberger@sonydadc.com
Picture file:
Shanghai Epic - Sony DADC's
production facility in China
Sony DADC in
Huntingwood/Sydney, Australia
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