TOKYO, May 29, 1998 -- The DVD Forum, the international organization of hardware manufacturers, software firms and other users of the DVD Format, today announced the participation of seven new companies to its Steering Committee, increasing the membership from 10 to 17.

The seven new companies are IBM Corporation, Industry Technology Research Institute of Taiwan, Intel Corporation, LG Electronics Inc., NEC Corporation, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Sharp Corporation.

In response to the growing membership to DVD Forum, and to reflect the Forum's characteristic as an open organization, the Steering Committee decided to appoint seven additional companies.

The Steering Committee serves as the executive council of the DVD Forum, and approves all decisions relating to the fundamental structure or policy of the Forum.

"IBM is delighted to join the DVD Forum's Steering Committee and to help fulfill the DVD promise for a global, low-cost medium, based on a common standard," said Nicholas M. Donofrio, IBM senior vice president, Technology and Manufacturing. "We'll contribute all we can towards establishing a single standard with the cross-platform compatibility and copy-protection features required to meet the needs of customers and the information-technology, entertainment and consumer electronics industries."

"It is our greatest honor that Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has been elected to be one of the seven members in the DVD Forum Steering Committee," said Eric G. Lean, Vice President of ITRI. "We shall actively participate all the DVD Forum activities in advancing DVD technologies and in promoting DVD formats."

Dan Russell, Director of Platform Marketing of Intel Corporation, said, "The DVD family of formats is an important advancement in technology and a key initiative to evolving the PC platform. DVD technology provides PC users the capability to play rich interactive content and movies on their PCs, while reaching a new level of quality. Intel looks forward to continuing our DVD enabling and market expansion efforts as a member of the DVD Forum Steering Committee."

"We are honored to be a member of the DVD Steering Committee and excited to join the Committee which proved to have contributed to the development of the worldwide DVD standard," said Woo Hyun Paik, Executive Vice President & Chief Technology Officer for LG Electronics Inc. "LG Electronics Inc. is a world leader in CD-ROM drive and other multimedia products, and intends to contribute to the continued development of the DVD technology."

"We are very pleased to participate in the DVD Forum, free discussion field, as a new Steering Committee member," said Tomoo Miyawaki, Executive Vice President of NEC Corporation. "NEC wants to contribute to realize high capacity optical disk drives and enlarge this market from the view points of user's benefit and new technology. NEC believes that its new technology will prove useful for DVD in the near future."

"It is an honor and genuine pleasure for Samsung Electronics to have an opportunity to make contributions to DVD-industry as a Steering Committee member," commented Bon-Guk Koo, Vice President of Samsung Electronics. "Samsung Electronics is ready and willing to develop business and technology which benefit both consumers and DVD-industry, with its best effort and full capability.

Magohiro Aramoto, Corporate Senior Executive Director and Group General Manager of the Audio-Visual Systems Group at Sharp Corporation, expressed his pleasure of joining the Steering Committee. "We believe we would contribute much toward the progress of DVD in the following areas: technical activities concerning the new DVD format, and engineering activities for new development with our key components and technologies, through marketing activities for worldwide expansion," he said.

The Steering Committee originally comprised 10 companies: Hitachi, Ltd., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Philips Electronics N.V., Pioneer Electronic Corporation, Sony Corporation, THOMSON multimedia, Time Warner Inc., Toshiba Corporation, and Victor Company of Japan, Limited (JVC).

The DVD Forum is an international association dedicated to develop DVD formats and promote broad acceptance of this next generation technology. Today, the DVD Forum has over 160 member companies, including electronics manufacturers, software firms, and media companies worldwide. The DVD Forum continues to welcome new members.