NEC Technologies Ships CompCore's SoftPEG With PowerMate Pro PC Workstation.

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 23, 1996--CompCore Multimedia, Inc. today announced that NEC Technologies, Inc., a leading manufacturer of computers and peripherals for the North American market, is now shipping CompCore's "SoftPEG" MPEG-1 video and audio software with its 150-MHz Pentium PowerMate Pro series of enterprise PC workstations.

SoftPEG is a software MPEG-1 video and audio decoder developed by CompCore which allows PC users to play high quality video and stereo audio CDs without requiring additional specialized chips or boards. MPEG is an international standard for the encoding (compressing) and decoding (decompressing) of digital video and audio information. CompCore licenses SoftPEG to PC manufacturers, graphics chips and card manufacturers, video CD publishers, game makers and software developers to provide an inexpensive MPEG-1 video/audio player.

"When NEC Technologies went shopping for the best MPEG technology to bundle with their ultimate workstation, they chose CompCore's MPEG-1 player," said George Haber, President and CEO of CompCore Multimedia, Inc. "CompCore now supplies both NEC's North American and Japanese operations with SoftPEG."

SoftPEG is a fully contained software application which includes video and stereo audio decoding and a new easy to use graphical user interface. The latest version of SoftPEG (Version 2.0) also supports the most popular CD formats (Video CD 2.0, CD-1, Karaoke, Sigma Designs) and display graphics accelerator chips/boards which utilize Display Control Interface (DCI) and Direct Draw commands for use with Microsoft's Windows 95. SoftPEG can be packaged with OEM hardware products for added value, or bundled with MPEG video titles which can then be played on a PC or other general purpose computers.

CompCore also offers an audio only MPEG-1 decoder software package called "SoundPEG." This new software is ideally suited for integration with MPEG-1 video hardware products to provide a very low cost video/audio solution. Both SoftPEG and SoundPEG are now available on a 30 day trial basis for OEM customers.

NEC Technologies, Inc. is headquartered in Boxborough, Massachusetts and is a leading manufacturer of computers and peripherals for the North American market. The company's Commercial Systems unit serves the business market with advanced computing solutions tailored to the corporate environment, such as the PowerMate and Express/II. Other products from NEC Technologies include the award-winning Versa notebook computers, MultiSync+ V, XE and XP monitors, Silentwriter+ and SuperScriptr printers, and MultiSpin+ CD-ROM readers. NEC Technologies, Inc. is a subsidiary of NEC Corporation.

CompCore Multimedia, Inc. is the leading video and audio technology provider for MPEG (Moving Pictures Expert Group) products. Founded in 1993, CompCore is a privately held California corporation headquartered in Santa Clara, California. As one of its primary businesses, CompCore offers MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 audio and video hardware designs to enable its OEM customers to manufacture and ship the highest quality, lowest cost MPEG products in the industry. In addition, CompCore also provides its OEM customers with a software version of its MPEG-1 technology called "SoftPEG." SoftPEG runs on most standard workstations and PCs and enables end users to play MPEG-1 CD's on their personal computers without requiring specialized hardware. CompCore's technologies have been adopted by many of the largest PC, graphics boards and chip manufacturers in the world including Hitachi, NEC, Packard Bell, Matsushita, Cirrus Logic, ATI, Matrox, C-Cube, Twinhead and others.

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Note to Editors: SoftPEG is a trademark of CompCore Multimedia, Inc. Pentium is a registered trademark of Intel. Windows 95 is a registered trademark of Microsoft. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies.

CONTACT: CompCore Multimedia Inc., Santa Clara

Ron Richter, 408/567-0552