BERLIN, SEPT. 2, 2006 — SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) today
introduced the V-Mate Video Memory Card Recorder at the IFA Show,
where the company is exhibiting in Hall 2.1, Booth 103.
The ground-breaking V-Mate is a video memory card recorder, allowing
users to record video from video inputs such as over-the-air
television as well as cable, satellite, DVD players, personal video
recorders (PVRs) like TiVo and video cassette recorders (VCRs) onto
their flash memory cards.* Consumers can then take their memory card
from the V-Mate and insert it into their mobile phone, PDA, handheld
game console like the Sony PSP (PlayStation Portable), video music
player or notebook computer to play back their videos on the go.
“Today’s increasingly mobile consumer wants to be able to watch their
favorite shows and videos, whenever and wherever they want,” said Wes
Brewer, vice president of consumer product marketing at SanDisk. “The
V-Mate is an easy-to-use, affordable way for millions of people to
use their mobile phones or other mobile devices to watch video
content that resides primarily in the living room when they are away
from home.”
The SanDisk V-Mate lets users record up to 3.5 hours** of high
quality video per gigabyte, using industry-standard video formats.
Memory cards supported include SD, MMC, MMCplus MMCmobile, SDHC,
MiniSDHC, MicroSDHC, Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick Duo and Memory
Stick PRO Duo.
“The SanDisk V-Mate provides consumers with a convenient way of
place-shifting content from a largely stationary — living room-bound
environment — to a high mobile environment comprised of mobile
phones, portable game consoles and even notebook PCs,” said market
analyst Will Strauss, president of Forward Concepts. “The ability to
re-purpose consumer owned content is a great compliment to many of
the newer pay-per-view services rolling out now with many mobile
operators and service providers around the world.”
Matthijs Hutten, SanDisk product marketing manager, said, “The number
of mobile devices with a card slot and video playback capability is
huge and growing rapidly. The V-Mate will make it easy for consumers
to watch video on their devices by doing the analog to digital
conversion for them, compressing the video into MPEG-4 in multiple
formats and then creating the correct file format for the target
mobile device–all features unmatched by any product today in this
price range.”
With a maximum recording resolution of 640 x 480 pixels, the V-Mate
can also generate recording files for playback on larger screen
devices such as the TV it is connected to or a notebook PC. Solid
state memory (flash cards) consume less power than the hard drives or
CD/DVD drives in mobile entertainment devices and therefore offer
longer video playback time on a battery charge.
The V-Mate, which connects to the analog audio/video output of a
set-top box, DVD player, PVR or VCR and the analog audio/video input
of a TV, is easy to use. A remote control and TV-based graphical user
interface let users control settings, record and access content. It
has multiple programming slots for entering channel, date and
start/stop times to schedule recordings. At initial set-up users
select their playback device (such as a mobile phone or handheld
game) to ensure the recordings are playback compatible.
The unit includes an infrared emitter. This will automatically turn
on the TV tuner box (cable/satellite/terrestrial receiver or VCR) and
select the right channel when programmed to record. The V-Mate also
includes a mini-USB connection and cable to connect to a personal
computer.
The V-Mate measures just 5.1″ x 2.6″ x 0.8,” so it will fit snugly
next to almost any-sized television. The V-Mate, expected to be
available in October 2006, will sell for $129.99 MSRP.
SanDisk is the original inventor of flash storage cards and is the
world’s largest supplier of flash data storage card products, using
its patented, high-density flash memory and controller technology.
SanDisk is headquartered in Milpitas, CA and has operations
worldwide, with more than half its sales outside the U.S.
For home and personal use: This product is intended to be used for
recording and playback for your home and personal enjoyment. Copying
and commercial use of copyrighted material without permission of the
copyright owner may be prohibited by law. Use of your V-Mate in
compliance with all copyright and applicable intellectual property
laws remains the responsibility of the user of the product.
Recording times will vary by target device and video quality level.
Recording time is approximately 3.6 hours in a mobile phone (@ bit
rate of 544kbps) and 1.8 hours on a notebook computer (@bit rate of
1.056kbps).
1 megabyte (MB) equals 1 million bytes; 1 gigabyte (GB) equals 1 billion bytes.
SanDisk’s product and executive images can be downloaded from
http://www.sandisk.com/corporate/media.asp SanDisk’s web site/home
page address: http://www.sandisk.com