Best rated mp3 players

MP3 Market Gets It's First Five-Star Technology Deal; HyCD Bundles Xing Technology's Five-Star Rated MP3 Encoder Into HyCD's Five-Star Rated Play & Record

SAN JOSE & SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 26, 1999--

Two five-star players of MP3 technology, HyCD Inc. and Xing Technology Corp., announced today that they will combine their two top-rated technologies to deliver the best and most complete MP3 and CD recording software to the market. Xing's highly rated MP3 Encoder will be bundled into HyCD's highly rated Play & Record CD recording software and will be released by the end of March. The end result will place the fastest MP3 Encoder into the easiest and best MP3 and CD recording software.

"This deal goes beyond combining technologies, it focuses on the expansion and evolution of the MP3 market," states Paul Ling, HyCD's President and CEO. "With the March release of our Play & Record software to the hands of CD-REWritable consumers and musicians, pressure is heightened on the music industry and record labels. They will have to redefine their industry so musicians have the ability to record their own music and consumers will have access to both independent recorded music and the resource of music from the record labels.

"Unless the music industry reacts faster to the rate of change the MP3 music industry is going through, they will find themselves on the short-end of a strong emerging new market. HyCD has already lined up other MP3 deals that will improve the quality of recorded MP3 audio and also give MP3 Internet distributors more power and flexibility to cut MP3 audio to a customer CD," concludes Ling.

Digital music guru and CEO of MP3.com, Inc., Michael Robertson commented, "We welcome this evolution in the MP3 movement and are excited to embrace it. Consumers have clearly indicated that they want MP3 and this development signals more choice and growth in the MP3 market."

HyCD has the only MP3 and CD recording solution that has complete support for MP3 including encoding, decoding, CD ripping and CD recording. By integrating a copy and paste user interface into Microsoft's Explorer, HyCD Play & Record was recently awarded a five-star rating from MP3.com, the leading resource for MP3 news and technology reviews.

"The deal with HyCD expands our options in the MP3 market and the evolution of the MP3 industry," states Xing's President and CEO, Hassan Miah. "We have a strong commitment to be a leader in the developing new technology that will expand the MP3 market by improving and enhancing the delivery of MP3 audio. Pairing our five-star rated technology with HyCD's into one solution, shows how much of a commitment we are willing to make to keep the industry pushing forward. We want to be a driving factor for MP3 integration into consumer based products."

About Xing Technology Corp.

Xing Technology Corporation is the leading provider of software-based consumer digital audio products. Starting in 1990, Xing has led the multimedia revolution by introducing a number of innovative technologies and products to the marketplace, including the first software JPEG, the first software MPEG audio/video encoders and decoders, the first audio/video streaming and software-based DVD playback. In 1998, Xing became the first company to offer consumers MP3 encoding products that now represent over 90% of the market.

About HyCD, Inc.

HyCD, Inc. designs and develops innovative, easy-to-use software for CD Recorders, Re-Writable Drives and related technologies. The company, founded in 1992, is best known for its HyCD(tm) Technology. HyCD is a series of advanced CD recording applications for PC and UNIX systems that create cross-platform, hybrid multimedia CDs that can be read on DOS, Windows 95(tm), Windows NT(tm), Macintosh(tm) and UNIX systems. The company is headquartered in San Jose, CA and can be accessed over the Internet at its home page address: http://www.HyCD.com