MPEG encoders can only produce legal bit streams. If they can achieve this, they are not MPEG compliant, and would not be used. If a decoder can not decode all legal bit streams, then it is not a good decoder.
IBM still doesn't have a single chip encoder. From Innovacom's March 19th filing.................
tenkwizard.com
... However, C- Cube generally
sells components rather than the complete hardware and software digital video
compression and processing systems the Company hopes to develop for its
customers.
IBM was expected to compete with a single-chip MPEG-2 encoder and
decoder, but has not done so yet. The Company and many other market participants
presently buy a 3-chip MPEG-2 chipset from IBM for their own current board
products. IBM is expected to release its own single chip encoder in the future.
Other major potential competitors include companies such as Phillips and
SGS-Thomson, as well as large, integrated Japanese and Korean consumer
electronics companies, such as Sony, Hyundai, Toshiba, NEC and Samsung, which
have their own semiconductor design and manufacturing capacity. In high-level
MPEG-2 decoders as well as MPEG-1 encoders, LSI Logic has substantial market
share. In many of these cases, the Company hopes to be able to work jointly with
these companies to enhance quality encoding and decoding in the mass markets.
Among the Company's smaller competitors is FutureTel, which primarily
serves the video authoring marketplace with boards and software toolkits for
encoding video sequences for television broadcast studios. Minerva is a
venture-funded, fast-growing system reseller using C-Cube and other chip
sources. Another market participant, 3DO, started shipping MPEG-2
encoder/decoders for the Apple Macintosh in 1996, based on IBM's chipset, and
may decide to compete in the personal computer market. Several other companies
develop specialized professional video production boards. |
