Review of Patents and technology ------ from yahoo thread
stock_moper
Jul 18 1998
I have gone over the patents and truly believe SRCM has this nailed. I would look forward to technical debate and discussion ( only with technically knowledgable people ) as to any weakness with SRCM proprietary technology, or what I might be missing. Here is how I see it -
1) The patents will be enforceable until 2005 through 2008, lots of time. Besides coax cable, they cover broadcast, satellite, and fiberoptic transmission methods. Only transmission medium not covered would be encoded(compressed) video... and this might be questionable (only relevant for low bandwith transmission, i.e. phone lines).
2) Patents will be enforceable for HDTV rollout and standards.
3) If you are going to "address" a frame within the vertical blanking signal you are going to infringe on these patents.
4) Technology is scalable and covers two way communication over coax, which is available with next generation cable boxes.
5) Patents cover communication to video server via phone lines. Relevant as witnessed by AT&T cable acquisition.
6) Patents cover video overlay. Very significant as video streams can be chromakeyed (overlayed) to still frames.
7) Patents were written when video disc players were the technology of the day, and should be enforceable with new video server technology, offering much greater responsiveness.
8) Although patents were written referencing still video for technical simplicity, they will cover live video response signals back through the coax (sending back locally captured frame/overlay info).
I have questions about next generation cable boxes and capabilities; how will they communicate to the server and how robust are they. I only want technical feedback ( not, GI hasn't embraced the software,
yadayadayada).
Good luck to longs, I think this is going to be a real homerun.
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