Marantz Japan Standardizes on Sage's Video Display Processor Chipset for Home Theater Projectors.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

MILPITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 10, 2001

First Projectors to Combine Sage's Video Decoder,

Deinterlacer and Video Enhancer

Sage Inc. (Nasdaq:SAGI), a leading provider of digital display processors for consumer technology and PC-display products, today announced that Marantz Japan Inc., a manufacturer of high-quality audio, video and communications equipment, has selected Sage's FLI9200 chipset for use in its high-end digital home theater projector platform. The FLI9200 chipset consists of Sage's FLI2000S video decoder, FLI2200 deinterlacer and FLI2220 video enhancer. The first two projectors in Marantz's new platform, the VP-12S1 and VP-14S1 Digital Light Processing (DLP) front projectors, will be available worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2001, and are the first in the home theater projection market to incorporate Sage's patented and award-winning video decoding, deinterlacing, and video enhancement and algorithms.

Sage's FLI9200 chipset plays a significant role in the advanced video quality of the Marantz home entertainment projectors, which feature high-definition DLP with 1280 x 720 resolution, 16:9 panel aspect ratio and 1000:1 contrast ratio. Sage's proprietary features such as Directional Correlational Deinterlacing (DCDi(TM)), cross color suppression and video enhancement combine to produce natural looking high-resolution images free of coloration or motion artifacts, a difference especially visible on large screens. The DCDi algorithm eliminates the jagged edges seen on moving angled lines in video images.

"Marantz employs leading-edge technology to deliver best-in-class products. Sage's Emmy award-winning video processing technology is recognized as producing world-class images with exceptional levels of detail and depth of perception. The Sage chipset combining video decoder, deinterlacer and video enhancer helps Marantz attain the highest video quality usually associated with very expensive home entertainment systems at a reasonable price," stated Katsumi Shimoguchi, vice president & general manager of AV business headquarters at Marantz Japan.

The rapidly growing front projection market represents a significant opportunity for Sage's display processors. Stanford Resources, a market research firm focusing on the global electronic display industry, forecasts a worldwide tripling of front projection displays of all types within the next six years, from one million units shipped in 2000 to three million units shipped in 2006.

"Selection of the FLI9200 chipset by Marantz, a company noted for high-quality audio and video products, confirms Sage as offering the best video processing technology with the highest performance in its class," said Dr. Nikhil Balram, executive vice president and general manager for consumer products at Sage. "Marantz is breaking new ground by introducing home theater projectors with the Sage chipset, which deliver picture quality previously unavailable to the home consumer for a noticeable difference in large displays. This is another major design win in the projector space that validates the importance of Sage technology and reflects our growing traction in this market."

The FLI2000S NTSC/PAL video decoder accepts digitized NTSC/PAL composite or S-Video inputs and generates decoded luma and chroma signals using Faroudja's patented 2-D adaptive comb filtering technology. This provides better performance for moving pictures than standard comb filtering without a requirement for external memory. It also includes Faroudja patented time-base correction circuitry that ensures the output image is stable even when the input comes from unstable video sources like low cost VCRs.

Sage's FLI2200 is the world's first 10-bit single-chip motion adaptive deinterlacer, incorporating Faroudja's Emmy award-winning deinterlacing and post-processing algorithms to convert standard interlaced video signals into progressive scan signals. This highly integrated single-chip implementation with advanced video features reduces system cost while providing PC-display and consumer technology manufacturers with unmatched video quality and maximum design flexibility. Industry-first features, including proprietary DCDi and cross color suppression, combine to further distinguish the FLI2200 from other deinterlacers on the market.

The FLI2220 video enhancer provides adaptive non-linear two-dimensional luma and chroma enhancement. This includes horizontal and vertical detail processing which makes fine detail and texture more visible, and nonlinear bandwidth expansion which sharpens large transitions, resulting in a greater perception of depth in the image. The overall effect is to create a richer, more pleasing, high-definition-like picture.

About the Companies:

Marantz

A subsidiary of Philips Electronics, Marantz Japan Inc. is a manufacturer of state-of-the-art audio, video and communications equipment for the global consumer and business marketplace. The company's audio and video equipment includes Marantz-brand audio equipment and AV products, as well as professional-use products such as portable recorders and CD recording equipment. Marantz' communication equipment business offers a broad array of products covering the wireless data communication market and satellite communication market. The company is headquartered in Sagamihara, Japan. More information about Marantz Japan can be found at http://www.marantz.co.jp/eng.

Sage

Headquartered in Milpitas, Calif., Sage Inc. (Nasdaq:SAGI) is a leading provider of digital display processors, enabling superior picture quality for a variety of consumer technology and PC-display products ranging from web appliances to TVs and flat panel monitors. Leveraging Emmy-award winning Faroudja technology from its acquisition of Faroudja Inc., Sage is developing products that bring the home theater experience to the mass consumer and PC-display market through digitally enhanced television, projection displays, DVD players and internet appliances. The Company's systems-on-a-chip technology provides highly integrated mixed signal and system functionality with higher picture quality than lower-quality processors at a similar component cost. Sage's display processors, which include Faroudja digital video processors, are used by world-renowned consumer electronics manufacturers such as Compaq, Fujitsu, Hyundai, InFocus, LG, NEC, Philips, Samsung, Sanyo, Sony and Toshiba. More information about Sage can be found on its web site at www.sageinc.com; the Company may be contacted directly at 408/519-6500.

For a discussion of factors that could cause actual results to differ please see the publicly available SEC filings of Sage including its 10K for the year ended March 31, 2001 and particularly the discussion of risk factors within such documents

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