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

To: DiViT who wrote (44038)	8/19/1999 12:58:00 PM
From: Peter V	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

Interesting theory for the TiVo lawsuit. In reality, TiVo is not repackaging anything, they are merely making it possible for others to harvest and repackage it. Basically this is a souped-up VCR, that merely has the ability to record and play back content that the networks have made publicly available at no cost to the viewer. Just as all VCRs can fast forward over commercials, why is it any different when we adopt some modern technology to do so? Why can't the viewer choose how he/she will use the content for their personal use? It's kind of like the buzz over DAT and recordable CDs, that they will cause the demise of the industry through widespread piracy. And like that buzz, it's probably overblown. People are lazy and won't necessarily eliminate the commercials. In fact, some commercials are entertainment, just look at the Superbowl commercials, there was an article in the LA Times rating them. The Clio awards are strictly for commercials. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

To: DiViT who wrote (44038)	8/19/1999 2:16:00 PM
From: BillyG	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 50808

Nxtwave chip thwarts ghosts that haunt digital-TV rollout eetimes.com By Junko Yoshida EE Times (08/19/99, 12:20 p.m. EDT) NEW TOWN, Pa. — Nxtwave Communications Inc., a small company spun out of Sarnoff Corp. three years ago, has developed a chip that could simplify and therefore accelerate the rollout of digital TV, according to information from numerous industry sources. The new silicon solves the dynamic multipath problem that has dogged DTV, and will enable consumers to receive DTV signals via a simple indoor antenna. Nxtwave (New Town, Pa.), formerly known as Sarnoff Digital Communications, will announce its single-chip vestigial side-band (VSB) demodulator next week. The chip, which is equipped with an equalizer designed to deal with the dynamic behavior of the multipath, is slated for launch later this year. The chip's development removes an enormous element of consumer resistance to DTV — the necessity of installing a costly outdoor antenna to receive a ghost-free DTV picture. A DTV receiver that integrates Nxtwave's VSB solution could conceivably receive DTV signals in a ground floor basement just by using an indoor bow-tie antenna, according to an industry source familiar with the breakthrough. When it was formed in 1996, Nxtwave received from Sarnoff Corp. (Princeton, N.J.) non-exclusive rights to VSB technology developed by Sarnoff. Meanwhile, Motorola Inc. has a similar non-exclusive arrangement to use Sarnoff's VSB technology. Motorola is also scheduled to unveil its first VSB chip early next week. Nxtwave is said to have developed its own intellectual property in the DTV signal-reception area in the last three years that allowed it to develop a unique VSB chip that's resistant to dynamic multipath, based on its own design and implementations. An engineering executive at a major DTV system company acknowledged that DTV reception via indoor antennae remains a "horrendous problem" for DTV penetration in the U.S. market. "If [the Nxtwave development is] true, VSB-based DTVs could really benefit from a chip like that," the executive said. The problem of the dynamic multipath for DTV receptions is not new. Field tests results of the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) transmission system, which were carried out in the mid-1990s, identified "the limiting factor in terrestrial field operations is often not white noise, but rather severe dynamic multipath on UHF and severe impulse noise on VHF." Other chip vendors have tried to address the multipath issue, for example, by increasing the number of filter taps in an equalizer. But until Nxtwave's chip development, no company had ever claimed to solve the complex, dynamic multipath issue. Nxtwave is said to have made a fundamental architectural change to a VSB chip to address the issue. The difference between multipath and dynamic multipath is fairly straightforward. Discrete ghosts are often associated with multipath conditions of large, flat surfaces, such as tall steel buildings. However, multipath conditions can occur in areas with hills and dense foliage in fringe areas, where a signal can travel through many paths to a DTV receiver. When the signal is bounced back from even a slightly moving object, such as a tree, rather than from a steady object like a building, complex ghosts could emerge. This requires the receiver's equalizer to "work hard" to reduce the ghosts to acceptable levels. Such complex ghosts often have a time-varying or dynamic nature to them, and it is that dynamic behavior of the multipath that is the most challenging for the equalizer. Nxtwave Communications, a rapidly growing company with 35 employees, declined to comment on its upcoming silicon announcement. The company is said to have a number of specialists in VSB, ghost cancellation and the transmission of DTV signals under adverse circumstances. Engineers at DTV technology companies who have either seen or heard about the simulation of Nxtwave's new chip hold high hopes for the technology. "This could add a major push for DTV installation both on a PC and on a family room TV, through an indoor antenna," one executive said.

To: DiViT who wrote (44038)	8/19/1999 5:54:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 50808

So much for the R&D C-Cube and everybody else spent to port their DVD chips to this........................ techserver.com Intel abandons standalone graphics chip business Copyright ¸ 1999 Nando Media Copyright ¸ 1999 Reuters News Service From Time to Time: Nando's in-depth look at the 20th century SAN FRANCISCO (August 19, 1999 4:59 p.m. EDT nandotimes.com) - Intel Corp., the world's largest chip maker, is exiting a segment of the booming market for chips that process two and three dimensional graphics in personal computers after entering the market just last year. An Intel spokesman confirmed a report Thursday on CNET's News.com that said Intel is getting out of the market for stand-alone graphics chips, which it entered in February of 1998, with a graphics controller chip called the i740. But the company will continue to develop integrated chip sets, which combine a graphics processor with a standard PC chip set that accompanies the microprocessor, Intel said. "As we look at the market, we see the integrated approach becoming more popular," said Mike Sullivan, an Intel spokesman. "The 810 has been a very popular product," he said, referring to the Intel chip set that integrates graphics, which was introduced in the first half of this year. Analysts said Intel could not keep pace with rival graphics chip companies, such as ATI Technologies Inc., NVIDIA Corp. and S3 Inc., who were churning out better performing stand-alone graphics controllers faster than Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel. "There has been a lot of speculation that they would do this," said Dean McCarron, an analyst with Mercury Research in Scottsdale, Ariz. "They were competing against ATI, Nvidia, S3 and all of those vendors who have similar products and many were higher in performance." McCarron estimates that sales of the i740, plus some stand-alone graphics processors for the notebook market developed by its Chips and Technologies business, totaled about $150 million, less than one percent of Intel's total revenues, where were $26.3 billion in 1998. The i740 chip initially sold well, analysts said, but as the chip was not upgraded quickly, it ended up in the low-end or the sub-$1,000 PC market. "They sold several million of those parts, but toward the end of last year it was getting old in the tooth," said Peter Glaskowsky, an analyst at Cahners' MicroDesign Resources in Sunnyvale, Calif. "Its popularity declined and its sales declined and so forth, which happens really fast in graphics." Intel had plans for follow-on graphics chips, the i752 for this year and the i754 for 2000, but decided to scrap those plans and focus on chip sets that include the graphics controller chips, Sullivan said. Now the company plans a graphics chip set targeted to the mainstream computing market for the Pentium III processor. This chip set, the 810e, will be available sometime later this year, Intel said. Its current offering, the 810 chip set, is for its Celeron processor, which targets the low-cost PC market. Intel said no layoffs will occur as a result of its leaving the market segment. Engineers in the Chips and Technologies business purchased last year are working on integrated chip sets that will follow the 810e product.