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To: John Rieman who wrote (44013)	8/18/1999 6:54:00 PM
From: DiViT	Respond to of 50808

Asia major buyer of world's MPEG-2 chips UNITED STATES — Shipments of MPEG-2 silicon are expected to jump from $323 million this year to $704 million in 2002, according to research by Dataquest Inc., and Asia's electronics manufacturers are the world's major buyers. It's an extensive conversion from analog to digital technologies in consumer electronic products that is opening big markets for suppliers of MPEG chips. Mainland China makers for instance, are becoming primary purchasers of digital consumer electronics. As they have never devised analog VCRs, they immediately fit the category for MPEG-1 VCRs. The mainland is also developing a robust DVD market. ESS Technology Inc. is one maker that is benefiting from the mainland's digital production. Its new ES4108 chip, which meets the Super VCD standard for DVDs recently set by mainland China's National Committee of Standards, is a highly integrated solution that incorporates MPEG-2 video and audio, on-screen display, karaoke, system navigation software and a graphic overlay. Since the chip's introduction in October 1998, the firm has shipped more than 2 million units. ESS recently announced its second-generation integrated chip for DVD players, the Swan, that is backward-compatible with VCD and could help narrow the price gap between the mainland DVD standard and more expensive DVD players.The chip includes an MPEG-2 A/V decoder, a subpicture decoder, Dolby Digital (AC-3) audio and DVD navigation software. Japan is another lucrative Asian market for consumer electronic products, particularly DVDs and set-top-box solutions for digital-satellite reception. MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) is a set of standards for digital video and audio compression/decompression in a number of consumer products, including DVD, HDTV and digital cable. Currently, MPEG-2, used mainly in DVDs and digital TVs, is the in-vogue version, although a new standard is under development and is three or four years away from commercialization, according to industry analysts. asiansources.com

To: John Rieman who wrote (44013)	8/18/1999 7:55:00 PM
From: Peter V	Respond to of 50808

"Cable clearly, at minimum, has a five-to-one lead," said Michael Harris, president of Kinetic Strategies Inc. He estimated that DSL modems are in no more than 200,000 homes so far. They also come as the phone companies, alarmed by the growing popularity of cable modems, belatedly step up the pace of DSL rollouts in their major markets. Late last month, for instance, Bell Atlantic Corp. announced that it will double the pace of its DSL deployment, while GTE Corp. became the fourth regional phone company to agree to carry AOL Plus on its DSL lines. "There's a lot of competition in the DSL market and a lot of promotion," said Cynthia Brumfield, principal analyst at Broadband Intelligence Inc. "There's a real big, aggressive push on DSL." PacBell is also offering a special deal, with free installation and $49 a month for 384K X 128K service, including the ISP, plus a one-time $198 equipment fee: pacbell.com pacbell.com You have to sign up for a year to get the free install though, and I can't get it in my neighborhood, because Pac Bell agreed with the PUC not to cross over into GTE territory.

To: John Rieman who wrote (44013)	8/18/1999 11:30:00 PM
From: Rachel M. Kuecks	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

This is from the Echostar web page "AVAILABLE WINTER 1999 DISHPlayer Personal Television (PTV) Services DISHPlayer PTV services are digital VCR-like features including TV Pause; Program skip, fast-forward and rewind; as well as digital video recording capabilities. TV Pause is currently available, and the additional features will be available later this year. Better yet, you can get the PTV services with a simple software download from your satellite dish-- which means the DISHPlayer you buy today is equipped for future product enhancements. DISHPlayer PTV services will cost only $5.00 per month when you subscribe to WebTV Plus service, or $9.95 per month without WebTV Plus service." Does this mean the dishplayer has a Codec and if it does does anybody know who's chip it is?