FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Quality Music – Without the Limits.
Olive and MusicGiants to deliver playlists and collections of CD-quality DRM-free music on the award-winning OPUS digital audio player.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – October 11, 2007
Olive Media Products and MusicGiants announced a major digital audio breakthrough today. The OPUS digital audio player will now offer a large catalog of HD content, allowing users to buy, store, manage and play whole collections of true CD quality music, without any DRM (digital rights management).
Customers can now get a great music experience without the limits:
> Unlimited quality – lossless sound the same as with a CD. And with the OPUS system, the playback is on par with high-end CD players, and worlds apart from portable devices.
> Unlimited personal usage – the omission of DRM means customers can do what they like with their music in the spirit of fair use.
> Unlimited flexibility – delivered on the OPUS, it has never been easier to buy and manage HD music libraries with up to 750GB of storage.
> Unlimited convenience – forget buying CDs, ripping them, or having to connect through a PC or Mac to listen to your music. Here the music comes pre-selected, pre-assembled and ready-to-enjoy.
> Unlimited protection – the solution includes a backup hard-drive.
“Online music providers such as Apple iTunes or Amazon MP3 compress their music to the point that it severely diminishes the integrity of the original song,” says Elliot Mazer, sound czar for MusicGiants. “Here we are bringing something to the market that truly represents what music is supposed to sound like as these files represent 100% of the music that we master in the studio. iTunes only gives us 10%, and Amazon 20%.”
With all of the sound, and high-quality audio components of the OPUS to play them, listeners become part of the artists performance. Currently, MusicGiants’ DRM-free catalog encompasses music from top labels including Concord Music Group and Naxos Classical and continues to rapidly expand. The catalog includes music from renowned artists such as Miles Davis, Paul McCartney, Credence Clearwater Revival, Louis Armstrong, as well as all the major works of classical composers including Mozart, Bach, Mahler and others. Customers finally have a reason to replace their CD players and CD racks with a high quality, convenient, easy to use, DRM-free audio system with amazing sound.
“Our customers want a better listening experience, not to worry about bitrates or computers,” says Oliver Bergmann, Olive’s CEO. “Until now, we still had the challenge of how to make quality music available on our OPUS players without the pain of buying and ripping CDs first. Thanks to MusicGiants we now have the largest catalog of DRM-free CD quality music on the market to please every taste.”
Customers purchase music the way they enjoy it, in the form of playlists that are composed around events such as “Elegant Dinner Party”, “Late NIght Jazz” or moods such as “Romantic Moods” or “Mojito Mix”. Or they can go for larger selections presented by musical genres such as the essential works of classical, or the best of jazz and blues that usually take decades to build. There are no monthly subscriptions or other limitations. The music is delivered loaded on the customer’s OPUS, which is as open a system as the music. And because music libraries grow with their owners, the long-term experience far exceeds what is possible when music is not owned.
“Quality music has long been tied to the CD, but as trends have turned towards downloadable music, sound quality has been compromised. We have been able to raise the bar and deliver customers superior sound with the convenience of downloads,” explains Scott Bahneman, MusicGiants CEO. “Together with Olive’s OPUS pure audio systems and our huge catalog of HD DRM-free quality music, we are delivering a great music experience.”
Buying and enjoying the music is very simple. In the initial phase Olive and MusicGiants will only make the music available preloaded at the time of purchase of an OPUS system, or via a preconfigured hard-disk with simple import for customers that already have a system at home. This is to be followed in Q1 2008 by the opportunity to buy single tracks or albums “through-the-stereo”, continuing to bypass the PC experience and allowing to add to the soundtrack of your life while relaxing on the couch.
PRICING AND AVAILABILITY
Playlists are priced based on a cost of $1.29 per track, which is similar to the costs of other download sites, yet offering the much higher lossless CD-quality and DRM-free file. Collections are also based on the $1.29 per track price point, with select volume discounts applied. The playlists and collections are available as of today and exclusively through the Olive website (www.olive.us). A feedback channel is built into the site to quickly adjust the offering to customer demand and preferences.
ABOUT OLIVE MEDIA PRODUCTS
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Olive is a privately held company driven by a team of music aficionados with a vision to create the perfect audio experience that is made simple and affordable to everyone. With a deep understanding of audio and convergence technology Olive solutions deliver the best of both worlds, combining high fidelity sound and innovative features with intuitive navigation and attractive design.
For more information about Olive and its many fine products visit www.olive.us or call 1.877.BY.OLIVE. Media inquiries please contact:
Olive Corporate Communications
Telephone: (415) 908 3870
E-mail: communication@olive.us
ABOUT MUSICGIANTS
MusicGiants, which launched in 2005, is the only digital music service to offer high definition downloads from all of the major labels. MusicGiants’ use of the WMA lossless format provides up to seven times the sound quality of any other download service, MusicGiants is the perfect source for home audio systems and anywhere else where sound quality matters. For more information on MusicGiants visit www.musicgiants.com.
Press contact:
Caster Communications, Inc. at 401.792.7080
Lauren Simmen lsimmen@castercomm.com
Joe Paone jpaone@castercomm.com
For digital images log on to www.castercomm.com
TRADEMARKS
Olive is a registered trademark of Olive Media Products, Inc. in the US and in the countries where Olive products are sold or distributed. OPUS and Preload are trademarks of Olive Media Products, Inc. MusicGiants is a trademark of MusicGiants. Other brands and names are the property of their respective owners.
