5 June 2006:
MEZZO and e.Digital Corp announce IFE partnership to offer eVUT...
http://www.mezzo.aero/news5.html

MEZZO, the provider of fully outsourced handheld in-flight entertainment (IFE), has announced that it has partnered with e.Digital Corporation (e.Digital) a leading innovator of proprietary, secure digital video technology and products. MEZZO, who recently announced the addition of Rolls-Royce plc to its list of shareholders, and e.Digital, which brings several years of experience producing robust and proven handheld personal media players to in-flight entertainment, are partnering to make e.Digital’s proprietary eVUT personal media player available now to airlines and particularly for airlines flying short haul.

Based on e.Digital’s proprietary digital video technology, eVU features razor-sharp images on its 7” high resolution LCD screen, superb audio fidelity, dual stereo headphone jacks, embedded credit card reader/processor, bright full featured graphical user interface, e.Digital’s patent-pending hardware security technology, 10 hours of high resolution video playback on a single battery charge, and other advanced features.

Dave Sampson, chief executive officer of MEZZO said,
“We place a high value on e.Digital’s experience in delivering for this market place. eVU is a culmination of years of experience that translate into a robustly designed media player that can be handed out to passengers time and time again, which is exactly what the industry and MEZZO needs. In a market where other products appear to offer a similar proposition, reliability that can only be built on experience, will remain the key element in determining success. We expect eVU to quickly become the workhorse of the handheld IFE industry.”

MEZZO'S new IFE solution for short hauls flown by the low cost carrier (LCC) market successfully passed proof of concept in a trial last year with the UK’s easyJet. eVU will enable MEZZO to offer their fully outsourced service immediately to those low cost carriers who either wish to generate new ancillary profits or who wish to differentiate their brand in the fastest growing part of the global aviation market.

MEZZO'S flexibility and unique full service approach to handheld IFE provides revenue and brand differentiation as well as cost effective solutions for airlines. Handheld players can replace DVD players or outdated overhead screen systems that fail to provide customers with high quality entertainment. MEZZO also offers airlines that are using other handheld IFE devices an upgrade to their fully outsourced solution so that they can experience the full benefits of MEZZO'S “simpler, better, cheaper” approach to handheld IFE.

Will Blakeley, e.Digital’s president and chief technology officer commented,
“MEZZO'S ability to deliver handheld IFE solutions on international short haul, low cost carriers provides us with an exciting opportunity to proliferate eVU throughout this segment of the IFE industry. We are very excited to be working with MEZZO and look forward to mutually building our businesses through this partnership.”

More about e.Digital Corp: www.edigital.com