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  KODAK SELECTS SUN WORKSTATION FOR INNOVATIVE PHOTO CD SYSTEM
   
SunFLASH Vol 21 #18					      September 1990 
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Kodak Photo CD Puts 35mm Photographs on Compact Discs for TV Viewing
 
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --September 18, 1990-- Sun Microsystems today
announced that its powerful UNIX(R)-based SPARCstation(TM) computer has
been selected by Eastman Kodak as the platform for Kodak's new Photo
CD, a digital photo processing system.  Photo CD was introduced today
by Kodak in New York, London and Japan, and marks a significant move
for the company beyond chemical-based photo processing.  For Sun, the
selection by Kodak demonstrates the rapidly increasing use of the
company's workstations in commercial applications.

Kodak considers this system a revolution in consumer photography.
Photo CD will be offered to customers as an option by retail
photofinishers worldwide, to store digitized photographs on compact
disks.  This will give customers the quality and convenience of
computer storage, display and manipulation.

In the future, photofinishers will use a scanner developed by Kodak to
"read" processed 35 mm negatives or slides into a Sun SPARCstation,
where images can be edited or manipulated on screen.  A Photo CD
discwriter made by Philips is then used to "write" these pictures onto
compact disks.  According to Kodak, customers get photographs that are
far superior to that of current electronic still photography systems,
since images are scanned directly from film and digitized.

Customers will receive a compact disc (Photo CD) containing all the
exposures from their roll of film.  These pictures can then be played
back on television using a Photo CD player, which plays both audio CDs
and Photo CDs.  In addition, Sun customers can use a standard SunCD(TM)
disk player to move these images into a Sun system to view, manipulate
and incorporate them into existing business applications such as
presentations and reports.

The photofinisher can also provide "instant" high-quality photos that
have been edited on screen by sending images from the SPARCstation to
Kodak color thermal printers.  Color, sharpness and granularity are
similar to those of prints made on photographic paper from original
negatives.

Kodak Chooses Sun for Multimedia Development

Photo CD is an example of a multimedia application, one of the most
promising technology areas for workstations.  Kodak began product
development of Photo CD on a personal computer, then turned to a Sun
SPARCstation because of its superior speed, virtually unlimited memory
and high-resolution displays.  Kodak also chose the SPARCstation as the
system used by photofinishers because of its industry-leading
price/performance.

Today's emerging multimedia applications need workstation power and the
graphics capabilities offered by Sun.  According to Scott Brownstein,
Photo CD development manager at Kodak, "With the SPARCstation, we got a
high-powered system and a rich development environment.  The system has
the large memory required to handle true-color images.  And unlike some
PCs, it uses open technology based on standards."

Sun Microsystems, Inc., headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is a
leading worldwide supplier of network-based distributed computing
systems, including professional workstations, servers and UNIX
operating system and productivity software.

###

SPARC is a registered trademark and SPARCstation is a trademark of
SPARC International, Inc., used by Sun Microsystems, Inc., under an
exclusive license.  SunCD is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.
UNIX is a registered trademark of UNIX Systems Laboratory, Inc.  All
other products or services mentioned in this document are identified by
the trademarks or service marks of their respective companies or
organizations.

Press Contact:
Cindee Mock (415) 336-3563

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