Philips Electronics' Showcases New Blu-ray Disc(TM) for Celebrities, Filmmakers and VIPs at the Nation's Premiere Film Festival.

PARK CITY, Utah -- At the nation's premiere film festival this week, film industry executives and dozens of celebrities received a glimpse at the future of storage and playback technology for high-definition (HD) video content through demonstrations of Blu-ray Disc media in Philips' Simplicity Lounge. Its third year at the festival, Philips created the Simplicity Lounge in order to showcase current and future technology to industry VIPs and media, with an emphasis on products that enhance the viewing experience of TV and movie content for consumers.

Blu-ray Disc is the most advanced optical storage standard that satisfies next-generation requirements in terms of storage capacity, data speeds, copy protection, interactivity, convenience and cost. Blu-ray Disc technology is based on blue lasers, rather than the red laser used with CDs and DVDs. This allows for a much sharper laser focus, smaller pits on the disc and a huge increase in storage capacity.

Blu-ray Disc has the support and technological innovation behind it to be the industry leader and is supported by more than 160 of the world's largest gaming manufacturers, movie studios, consumer electronics and PC manufacturers. The new technology provides consumers with the highest quality level of HD content, not matched by any other HD video source.

"This film festival is the ideal place for us to showcase our new Blu-ray technology," said Marty Gordon, vice president, Philips Electronics office in Hollywood. "Filmmakers, actors and other members of the entertainment industry have been in our lounge all week and have been amazed by the picture quality Blu-ray Disc offers and are looking forward to consumers having the ability to enjoy quality HD content in their homes."

Philips Electronics is a world leader in optical storage and is also a founding member of the Blu-ray Disc Association. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month, the company introduced a Blu-ray Disc consumer electronic player (BDP9000), an all-in-one PC Writer (TripleWriter)(TM) and new Blu-ray media (BD-R and B-RE, single layer 25 GB(1) and dual layer BD-R and BD-RE 50 GB). Both the BDP9000 consumer player and the TripleWriter (SPD7000) will be available in the second half of 2006.

The next generation in data storage and recording

Blu-ray Disc is the only recording format with the capacity of 25 GB on a single-layer disc and 50 GB on a dual layer disc. Providing massive storage capacity, Blu-ray Disc enables the playback of full-length feature movies using high definition MPEG2 encoding - the native compression technique for HDTV broadcasts - or even more capacity with advanced codes such as AVC. Through Blu-ray Disc, consumers can enjoy enough storage for nine hours of HD movies, 23 hours of standard definition content or 72 CDs on a single disc.

Blu-ray Disc has sufficient capacity to include bonus materials and interactive sessions for an unparalleled entertainment experience. For PC users, archiving photographs, video or other data on the hard disk, Blu-ray Disc is the only recordable/re-writable format that provides such a quantum leap in optical storage capacity and gives a seamless experience between PC and CE environments. Additionally, Blu-ray Disc is based on today's most advanced technological breakthroughs and offers full backwards compatibility.

For further convenience, Philips introduces four robust and easy-to-use disc types: 25 and 50 GB versions of BD-R and BD-RE. The Blu-ray Disc has a revolutionary protective cover layer utilizing an advanced hard coating technology, offering superior robustness, better than CD and DVD. This coating prevents fingerprints and scratches and will provide ease of use by improving cleansibiliity without the risk of damaging.

Philips new TripleWriter PC drive

The new Philips TripleWriter (SPD7000) showcases Philips' ability to integrate PC products and technologies into the consumer electronics realm. The drive features recording and playback capabilities of all popular optical storage formats including CD, DVD and Blu-ray Disc, which allows users to select their media of choice depending on the preferred application.

Philips' TripleWriter features a 2x (72 Mb/s continuous data-rate) read and write speed on BD-ROM, BD-R and BD-RE media. The drive reads and writes a variety of legacy media including CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD+R, DVD+R DL, DVD-R, DVD-R DL, DVD+RW and DVD-RW. Additionally, Philips will launch four types of discs (BD-R and BD-RE, single layer 25 GB and dual layer BD-R and BD-RE 50 GB) together with the introduction of the TripleWriter. The TripleWriter can be built into any PCD featuring S-ATA interface.

About Royal Philips Electronics

Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands (NYSE: PHG)(AEX: PHI) is one of the world's biggest electronics companies and Europe's largest, with sales of $37.7 billion (EUR 30.4 billion) in 2005. With activities in the three interlocking domains of healthcare, lifestyle and technology and 159,200 employees in more than 60 countries, it has market leadership positions in medical diagnostic imaging and patient monitoring, color television sets, electric shavers, lighting and silicon system solutions. News from Philips is located at www.philips.com/newscenter.

BLU-RAY DISC(TM) (BD) IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF THE BLU-RAY DISC ASSOCIATION (BDA).

TripleWriter(TM) is a trademark of Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.

(1) Actual storage may be less; 1 GB = 1 billion bytes