At a major reception held at the Sony Ginza Showroom Building in Japan, and attended by over 200 participants, Sony last week celebrated the fifth anniversary of the introduction of Super Audio CD.

The event brought together leading representatives from many major record companies, including the Japanese subsidiaries of BMG, EMI, Universal Music K.K. (UMKK) and Sony Music Entertainment Japan (SMEJ), as well as equipment manufacturers, distributors and retailers.

In his opening address, Sony Corporation Chairman and CEO, Mr. Nobuyuki Idei, emphasised the critical role that SA-CD plays today in bringing real music to the consumer. Furthermore, Mr. Idei restated Sony?s commitment to SA-CD and asked for further co-operation from the entire audio and music industries in promoting this high-resolution, high-security audio format.

With over 2410 albums already available on the format (source: www.sa-cd.net), SA-CD is by far the most popular high-resolution, multi-channel audio format. Apart from celebrating its success, a major motivation for staging this high-profile event was to further encourage record companies to release more music on Super Audio CD. To support this message, Mr. Kei Ishizaka, President and CEO of UMKK explained the critical importance of packaged media to his company and the key role that SA-CD is playing in its mission to provide the highest quality audio product to its customers. Following this theme, Mr. Kazutomo Enomoto, President of SME Japan addressed plans for his company to release a wide range of music from different genres on SA-CD.

Besides Mr. Idei?s direct call for support from the music recording industry, another clear message was the growing need for increased and extended infrastructure to support SA-CD production globally. ?The business case for SA-CD is now well proven and the business model is established,? commented Mr. Yushi Igarashi, General Manager of the Sony SA-CD Business Centre in Japan. ?Sony is totally committed to this revolutionary audio technology and we would like to promote its adoption throughout the audio industry.? Concluding the event, Mr. Yoshinori Yamamoto, President, Sony Corporation, Home Network Company, Home Audio Company explained that the evolution of one-chip SA-CD solutions was leading to the rapid development of a wide range of SA-CD hardware, and he committed to help the audio industry adopt and integrate these new technology solutions.