AV meets the PC at Comdex...................................
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Comdex Fall '98
A/V Meets PC at COMDEX
By Janet Pinkerton
LAS VEGAS--IBM, Compaq and Intel may have laid low during COMDEX, but the consumer electronics companies were dancing in the expensive tradeshow limelight.
Flat panel displays, digital televisions, PC/DTV cards and home networking solutions battled for attendee attention as a result.
Flat panel displays were nearly de riguer, with vendors angling for the corporate market in addition to the upscale consumer.
Digital televisions on the show floor--at Zenith's booth for example--drew attention then diverted to a flock of DTV decoder cards for PCs, for those who want to use their PCs to access high definition broadcasts from their PCs. These PC DTV decoder cards could become a cheaper means of decoding DTV programming than current set-top box options.
LG Electronics and LG Semiconductor showed a PC add-in card with an "all-in-one" digital TV receiver chip slated for delivery to OEMs in first quarter 1999. Retail price has not been determined but is estimated to be under $500. In the LG booth, Zenith used the card to show an end-to-end datacasting system, promoting the use of vestigial sideband technology in the DTV spec to deliver data.
Panasonic Industrial Company announced availability of an all-format DTV tuner/decoder card developed with Compaq. Volume production is to begin in "early spring 1999."
Panasonic used this PC/DTV card to demonstrate its MicroCast technology, which uses 5.7GHz radio frequency, bi-directional wireless network to deliver content from the PC to a TV located elsewhere in the home. A 900MHz transceiver was used to control the system. Shown with joystick, keyboard and mouse plugged into the TV's transceiver, the Panasonic version was a work in progress, due to hit the market in mid-1999 at a price point under $400.
In a side room in its expansive booth, Philips Consumer Electronics showed AMBI, a similar system that uses 2.4GHz RF and infrared wireless networking technology, including a wireless keyboard with integrated mouse, to set up a second PC user session on a TV.
Philips executives said AMBI sets up a microcell that can transmit signals up to 150 feet away from the PC. The system transmits a second, separate PC desktop to the TV wirelessly, even permitting two simultaneous modem sessions on one ISP account. Drive usage is on a first-come, first-served basis, however.
Philips plans to show AMBI at the International Consumer Electronics Show and have it on retail shelves in the beginning of February at $699 SRP.
Also in the wireless networking world, Proxim announced retail availability of its Symphony cordless networking products (a cordless ISA card, PC card and modem), plus the debut of a new optional Ethernet Bridge to connect the wireless network to available cable modem, ISDN router or ADSL gateway.
When it came to wireline networking, supporters of the HAVi 1394 home networking standard launched an extensive demo with the 1394 Trade Association, linking an NEC PC with a Sony DV camcorder and DVCR, a Philips D-VHS deck and a Samsung TV, for example. Kenwood worked with IEEE 1394 solutions provider Zayante to develop an LCD remote that could be used to control the system, changing its graphical user interface for each device on the network.
Zayante officials warned that working with 1394 is tricky and the quality of cable and interface will make or break a 1394 network. "The difference is that 1394 is really a high speed network," said Michael Teener, Zayante's chief technology officer.
Companies are still fighting over the branding of 1394 products, but eventually 1394 cables and connectors will require some trade-marked logo that indicates they have been tested and approved for use on 1394 networks.
The semiconductor designers have been working over time to pack more functionality into new and smaller boxes.
C-Cube Microsystem introduced its DVXplore chipset that would allow consumers to edit, record and play back DVD-quality video from any video source. DVXplore is to ship to OEMs by year's end, with retail products due in second-quarter 1999
MedianX, manufacturer of audio chipsets for speakers that generate surround sound effects with stereo speakers, is partnering with a video processor design company, nDSP. nDSP is developing a video processor designed to maximize DTV tube performance by interpolating from 16 pixels (in different video frames) to better reconstruct the curve of the video signal. nDSP claims its chip will significantly reduce information loss due to up- or down-image conversion.
nDSP and MedianX will unveil a prototype at CES. Commercial chip availability is slated for June 1999 for product due the following November.
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