Another all hardware decoder notebook, no AC-3????
www5.zdnet.com
Panasonic notebook to sport DVD drive
By John G. Spooner
August 13, 1997 10:13 AM PDT
PC Week Online
Panasonic Personal Computer Co. next month plans to ship one of the first notebook PCs featuring a DVD-ROM drive.
The new machine, called the CF-63 and priced at approximately $6,000, will be targeted toward companies that use multimedia for training or sales.
"This is the ultimate 'presentation class' portable," said John Harris, Panasonic Personal Computer's director of marketing.
The machine comes equipped with four speakers and a special 13.3XGA display developed specifically for DVD, a 166MHz Intel Corp. processor with MMX, 32MB of RAM and a 3.2GB hard drive. It also has full hardware support for MPEG-2 decoding, is backward compatible with CD-Recording and reads CD-ROMs at 20X speed.
The CF-63's most interesting feature, the DVD-ROM drive, is situated under the keyboard. To insert and remove disks, users lift up the keyboard to allow the disk tray to slide in and out.
Panasonic claims the machine, which weights 9 pounds and is nearly 2-inches thick, has a battery life of between 2 and a half and 4 hours, depending on how much the DVD-ROM drive is used.
Panasonic can be reached at (800) 662-3537 or at www.panasonic.com. |
