Victor Company of Japan, Limited (JVC) and Victor Entertainment, Inc., have co-developed "Encode K2" (ENC K2), a new powerful technology brings dramatic improvements in sound quality to formats such as CD and DVD Audio during the manufacturing process. The development of ENC K2 has been made possible by the application of JVC's proprietary "K2 Technology" during the CD format encoding process. JVC will begin taking orders to produce and manufacture CD and DVD Audio software incorporating the new technology.

In the quest to convey "the truth of the music" accurately, the two companies have worked together for years to develop technologies that improve the sound quality of disc media, aiming to achieve faithful reproduction on CD of the musical quality of original master tapes.

Based on conventional K2 Technology, ENC K2 reproduces a musical presence virtually identical to that achieved on the original master tapes. ENC K2 technology eliminates any artifacts that might alter or degrade sound quality from the digital signal transmission and occur during the CD format encoding process, such as distortion and noise.

Victor Entertainment, Inc., will employ the technology on CCCDs to be released on November 13, 2002.

Regarding ENC K2 Technology

Theoretically, the quality of digital audio should not change as long as codes remain constant. In fact, however, it is modified during digital signal transmission.

The CD cutting process used when manufacturing CDs usually includes three processes: "Reproduction of Master Tapes," "CD Format Encoding Process," and "Laser Cutting Process." Most recently, PC software and copy control functions have been introduced as a part of the "CD format encoding" process.

ENC K2 was developed to eliminate the artifacts that alter sound quality from digital signal transmission from input to output during the "CD format encoding" process ? a process which is becoming increasingly multi-functional.

The two companies have jointly developed and introduced technologies to improve music quality based on their proprietary K2 technology, including "Digital K2" which eradicates alterations in the audio quality of master tapes and "K2 Laser Cutting," (K2 LC) which improves the precision and purity of laser cutting during the CD cutting process.

With the development of ENC K2, the companies have established the Full Code Transfer System at all processes during the cutting process in CD manufacturing.