Kodak Launches 2x-Speed CD Publishing System

Eastman Kodak Company announced a writable compact disc publishing system, which includes the company’s new PCD Writer 200 CD recorder.

For more information visit: www.kodak.com


Unedited press release follows:

KODAK INTRODUCES ECONOMICAL WRITABLE CD SYSTEM

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Sept. 22, 1992 — Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE: EK) today announced the introduction of a writable compact disc publishing system that promises to make it economical for hundreds of applications to benefit from the ability to write, store and retrieve information on CD.

An outgrowth of the technology that created the new Kodak Photo CD system, the new Kodak Writable CD system is designed to offer commercial users a standard, low-cost alternative to traditional methods of publishing data CDs. The system consists of three parts:

— The Kodak PCD Writer 200, which writes and reads data to and from discs at twice the speed of conventional CD writers. The PCD Writer 200 also supports multi-session recording.

— The Kodak Writable CD disc, a write-once medium that can be read in standard CD hardware devices. Kodak Writable CD discs can store between 550 megabytes and 650 megabytes of data, text, images and digital audio, depending on the format.

— Kodak Publishing Software to drive the PCD Writer 200 from a customer’s host computer. Kodak software will be available for DOS, Windows, Macintosh and Unix operating systems.

“We’ve combined an economical medium, the Kodak Writable CD disc, with the double-speed PCD Writer 200,” explained Georgia L. McCabe, worldwide manager, Commercial CD, in Kodak’s CD Imaging unit. “The result is a CD authoring system that can publish discs for about $25 each, making it ideal for people who have not been able to justify pressing discs conventionally.

“Anyone looking to distribute large sets of variable information, in quantities from one to 100, should look closely at Kodak Writable CD.”

According to McCabe, likely customers for the Writable CD system fall into four categories, all of which can benefit from the technology: large companies, where the discs can be written on demand as replacements for paper reports; low-volume publishers, who need to create small numbers of CD copies; users who need to exchange large data files and maintain back-up files; and reference archives, which need to store information on a standard medium that doesn’t take up much space.

A Kodak Writable CD Publishing system is already at work at MCI, where billing records for large customers are being distributed on writable CD discs. “Hundreds of our large customers receive billing data on magnetic tape — or boxes of paper — for analysis,” said John Houser, an MCI spokesman. “The (CD-ROM) technology to put this data on disc for one-time use has been there, but not with this economy of scale for producing the first master.”

The Kodak PCD Writer 200, writable media and software all are available today from Kodak, as well as from selected value-added resellers (VARs) and systems integrators. In addition to selling components and systems, Kodak will provide a prototyping service that can assist larger customers in implementing writable CD technology for their applications.

As part of this service, the company will evaluate the customer’s needs, demonstrate conversion of data to a writable CD format and advise the customer on how best to use the technology. Once this analysis has been completed, Kodak can provide the customer with a turnkey system, or can arrange to offer on- or off-site disc-writing through its Kodak Imaging Services group.

For further information about the Kodak Writable CD system, customers may call 1-800-242-2424, ext. 52.