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To: John Rieman who wrote (42375)	6/23/1999 8:43:00 AM
From: BillyG	Respond to of 50808

Taiwan Aims to Become Self-Sufficient in Key DVD Components nikkeibp.asiabiztech.com June 23, 1999 (TAIPEI) -- Taiwan is fortifying its integrated DVD industry in an effort to become self-sufficient with key DVD components such as pick-up heads. A number of local makers have received technical transfers from Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), and are slated to launch pick-up head production soon. Key DVD components include pick-up heads, chip sets, motors and discs. In the area of chip sets, companies such as Acer Laboratories Inc. and Avid Electronics have started to wrap up production. Acer Laboratories, along with ITRI, presented the first MPEG2, DVD-controlled chip set that offers integrated functions allowing it to serve as a DVD player, DVD disc, as well as a DVD stereo. Since more than 30 percent of DVD costs are derived from chip sets mainly supplied by Japan's Toshiba Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Taiwan's self-sufficiency will help bring down production costs. Acer will supply domestic demand, with contract manufacturing expected to start in the second half. An ITRI spokesman said production of key DVD components will be wrapped up before the end of the year. Key components of DVDs and DVD-ROMs could generate NT$100 billion worth of production by the year 2000. Technical self-sufficiency is an indication that advances in the DVD industry will bring the DVD one step closer to an integrated system, getting rid of the previous dependence on Japanese supply. (NT$32.3 = US$1) (Commercial Times, Taiwan)

To: John Rieman who wrote (42375)	6/23/1999 9:12:00 PM
From: Cameron Lang	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

All the usual broadband suspects... CUBE/Pinnacle mention... forbes.com Cable clash By Andrew J. Kessler IN MY OFFICE sits a strange photo of yours truly with Rob Glaser, chief executive of RealNetworks, and the cast of the TV show Frasier. RealNetworks is the hands-down leader in Internet audio and video delivery, with more than 70 million users. I sometimes fantasize that the photo will one day accompany a press release stating that the producers of Frasier have dumped NBC to release their show exclusively over the Web. Given AT&T's $100 billion landgrab for cable systems, that isn't so far-fetched these days. Ma Bell's chief, C. Michael Armstrong, is a latter-day John D. Rockefeller, tying up the cable lines going into millions of U.S. homes. He harbors hopes of locking up the pipeline that will flood households with interactive video, broadband Internet access and telephone services. John D. locked up railroads and oil pipelines; why can't C. Michael do the same with bits? Because his cable pipeline, while it's a fat one, faces lots of emerging competition: local phone lines, wireless local loop and satellites. By buying Tele-Communications and MediaOne, AT&T will own the pipes and the "head end" that pumps up to 175 video channels through them. Yet DirecTV owns a head end in the sky, beaming hundreds of channels to dishes in 7 million homes. An even bigger threat to AT&T's would-be pipeline chokehold comes from its offspring, the local Bells. They have talked about video delivery for years, but with a technology known as ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line), they may actually deliver. Current ADSL zaps data to homes over ordinary phone lines at a typical speed of 1 million bits per second (about 16 times faster than the speediest dial-up link to America Online). Unfortunately, it takes six megabits to deliver high-quality video, plus lots of equipment and complex software to make it happen. But these pieces are coming into place. DSL admittedly is just a piker right now, in 92,000 homes nationwide. USWest leads with 35,000-plus homes in its region now getting DSL and 5.5 million homes able to sign up for it. In a trial in Phoenix, some 2,000 households get video-ready DSL at speeds of up to 7 megabits per second for cable TV. The coming clash between cable and DSL holds opportunity for industry and investors alike. (A disclosure: I have invested in most companies mentioned here.) Broadcom of Irvine, Calif. is a leading supplier for broadband, serving up some 90% of the silicon in cable modems. It also makes components for VDSL (very high speed digital subscriber line), which handles video at speeds of 26 megabits per second, maybe even up to 50 megabits. Cable modems offer up to 20-megabit peak performance, but only 1 or 2 megabits when serving multiple users. VDSL is here now but can pump the video only as far as the outside of your house. Getting it inside requires home networking, one of the hottest areas in technology. To that end, Tut Systems, which recently went public, provided 1-megabit technology to the Home Phoneline Networking Alliance, a consortium formed by Intel, IBM and others. Broadcom bought a company named Epigram that provides 10-megabits-per-second data flows. Proxim is a wireless networking provider that can do 2 megabits, and RadioLAN (the only privately held concern mentioned here) offers 10 megabits today and promises 30-megabit speeds by next year. The local phone giants also will need head-end equipment, basically a server that can deliver many streams of video to each individual home. Pinnacle Systems is just starting to ship its Thunder video server, which deploys eight DVX chips from C-Cube to feed video streams to the Internet. So AT&T's stranglehold on the cable pipeline could be slippery. All the players are racing to leverage technology developed for other markets, from networking to broadcast to satellite delivery, to turn telephone companies into video programmers. That could benefit investors and viewers alike. KelseyGrammer.com is getting closer. Andrew J. Kessler (akessler@velcap.com) is a general partner of Velocity Capital Management, a technology and communications investment company in Palo Alto, Calif.