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Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Black-Scholes who wrote (42655)	7/8/1999 1:48:00 PM
From: Michael Olds	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

There have been a few previous posts inquiring about the nature of compression. This is from the Ampex board, which, while discussing an Ampex patent, discusses the nature of compression in some, but not too complex, detail. Possible applicable patent: US5434623: Method and apparatus for image data compression using combined luminance/chrominance coding patents.ibm.com This may have been mentioned on this thread in previous patent discussions, I can't recall though. click on: "Show the 7 patents that reference this one" Note the Intel patent that references Ampex's patent. And Sony as well. Shortcuts follow: Intel: US5802213: Encoding video signals using local quantization levels patents.ibm.com Sony: US5703646: Picture encoding method, picture encoding apparatus and picture recording medium patents.ibm.com If you go to the view pages portion of the Ampex patent, see page 6 of this document: patents.ibm.com "This invention relates to real-time compression and encoding of digital video signals to provide for the transmission of compressed digital data through a communications channel, or for recording and playback of compressed data on a magnetic tape recorder or other recording medium. More particularly, the present invention relates to a technique for combining the encoding of, for example, the luminance and chrominance components of a common portion of an image, such that in a portion with less chrominance information content more luminance information is conveyed, and vice versa. In general, the goal of data compression is to send digital information from one point to another through a transmission channel using the least amount of information transfer as is possible. In other words, the object is to eliminate the transmission of unnecessary information. Video images, by their very nature, contain a great deal of redundancy and thus are good candidates for data compression. A straight-forward digital representation of an image necessarily contains much of the same redundancy both in a spatial sense and a temporal sense. By removing a portion of the redundancy at the transmitter, the amount of data transmitted over a communications channel or recorded on a storage medium may be substantially reduced. The image, then may be reconstructed by reintroducing the redundancy at the receiver or, if recorded, in the recorder playback electronics. It is to be understood that the expression "image data" as used herein refers to data defining an image to be displayed in two dimensions, which further may take the form of a time varying image composed of multiple video frames which are equally spaced in time. Such a signal might be a moving scene derived from a video camera. Data representing images typically have more than one component defining the image at any particular location. For example, color images in a color television system consist of three components for each spatial location; a luminance component and two color difference components. There tends to be more detail in the luminance component, and the color difference components tend to define low color contrast. This is generally true in pictures of naturally occurring scenes. On the other hand, computer generated images such as provided in graphics systems may have strong detail and high contrast in the color difference components. Thus, in the process of bit allocation, if the analysis of how many bits are allotted to luminance and chrominance is based on natural scenes, a compression process performed on a graphics image will generally result in insufficient bits being allotted to the more complex chrominance. The typical compromise made is that each component of the luminance and color difference components is assigned a certain fixed number of bits. In general, since the luminance contains more information than chrominance in the average natural scene, the greater proportion of total bits available per pixel are allotted to the luminance component than to the chrominance component. In such a situation, if the chrominance component with smaller bit allocation has high contrast and detail, as occurs frequently in the computer generated graphics of previous mention, the rendition of that component will be poor, resulting in poor overall image quality. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention overcomes the shortcomings of the prior art of previous discussion, by providing a technique which allots more storage space or signal bandwidth to the signal component of greater complexity. To this end, the technique combines the encoding of data components, whereby the component with the greater information content is allowed more bits in the compression process. This requires an appropriate organization of the data format, and the calculation of a "joint" quantizing factor to be used equally on, or with a fixed relationship between, the signal components." Imagine for a moment if Ampex, with 30+ years of experience in the video business, happens to have discovered and patented the optimum method for compression of digital video images that can either be transmitted over a communications medium, such as the Internet, or stored on a magnetic medium. Could something like that be useful in the near future? Reading though the patent one gets the impression that Ampex engineers possess great knowledge in devising methods which improve the quality of images. This compression scheme adapts to the type of image being compressed to provide the greater storage space to the image component that requires it the most. The method of achieving this sounds very elaborate and complex. It also may be used on the DCT 1700 tape drive. Glad for the many CUBE posts I have been able to put on the AXC board, nice to have one to give back! MO

To: Black-Scholes who wrote (42655)	7/8/1999 1:59:00 PM
From: Maya	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 50808

Herb on the receiving end: Readers Rake Herb Over the Coals for IDT Article from TSC, the following and a lot more: thestreet.com The first sentence of the article is totally misleading and certainly doesn't tie in with rest. If you want to be a shill for people like David Rocker, that's fine, but why not state that and disclose what benefits you are receiving from this relationship? I have seen the same kind of slanted reporting once before from you with respect to C-Cube (CUBE:Nasdaq). It wasn't wrong, just misleading and slanted and, just like this story, was made public just as the stock started to gain some nice momentum. That movement was nipped in the bud by this kind of reporting. You mention the credit line but do not say how much is outstanding. You don't tell us exactly what this company does and whether IDT has an interest in it. Did you ask these questions of anyone? If the company doesn't exist, why didn't you speak with IDT's auditors? A $25 million line is a material item, I would think. I plan on reporting this matter to the SEC. I am tired of your antics, and I would hope that the editor would crack down on some of this self-serving drivel. -- Armin Sternberg (received 7/7)