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To: Stoctrash who wrote (45785)	10/5/1999 12:20:00 PM
From: DiViT	Respond to of 50808

Pure Diva... PURE DIVA READIES FOR BIG DEBUT Software lets PC's hard drive emulate PVR 10/1/1999 By Rob McGee October 1, 1999 -- Shoppers who buy a new computer this holiday season will get a very special gift: a free TiVo! Well, sort of. MGI, the Toronto-based software company responsible for the popular editing program VideoWave, has developed a software package that will allow PCs to sort-of emulate standalone personal video recorders (PVRs) like TiVo and ReplayTV. The new software goes by the name of PURE DIVA -- which sounds vaguely like a promotional tag for New York's annual Wigstock drag festival, but is actually derived from Digital Interactive Video and Audio. Currently, MGI has no plans to distribute the software separately, citing, among other reasons, the laundry list of required hardware components needed for PURE DIVA to work. Instead, the product will be part of the bundled software for some new PCs, beginning in December for certain key markets. (A broader rollout is anticipated in spring of 2000.) According to MGI marketing representative Josef Zankowicz, the company is talking to "all the major OEMs" -- the "Original Equipment Manufacturers" who build the PCs -- to determine which models will be able to support the resource-intensive PURE DIVA. (As a bare minimum, the software requires a 500 MHz Pentium III processor, but the PC must also ship with such peripheral hardware as a TV tuner card.) What will it do? Like the built-in software that powers ReplayTV and TiVo, PURE DIVA continuously records incoming TV signals by converting them on-the-fly to the compressed MPEG-2 format used for DVDs and digital satellite broadcasts. The difference is that the set-top boxes have hard drives dedicated to video storage, while the MPEG-2 stream produced by MGI's software will share drive space with the user's word processor and Web browser. Zankowicz was quick to point out other differences: "PURE DIVA also has an interface for viewing movies from the DVD-ROM drive, as well as audio CD listening. You don't get that with Replay or TiVo." Fair enough. But software-based audio players and MPEG-2 decoders are legion; it's PURE DIVA's ability to mimic the functionality of a set-top PVR that makes it, for the moment, a unique product. But just how fully will the software emulate a standalone PVR? "First, the good news..." Using pre-recorded footage from a Sony DV camcorder as the incoming video source, MGI representatives demonstrated PURE DIVA in the etown.com conference room this week. For the most part, the performance was on a par with what TiVo or ReplayTV can do. When the MGI guy played back a short segment of freshly-recorded MPEG-2 video, there was no obvious compression artifaction; nor were there dropped frames suggesting that the CPU was being overwhelmed by the demands of the software. The playback did have a slightly jerky quality, which MGI's Shelly Sofer plausibly attributed to the fact that the demonstration PC had a slower processor than the models shipping in December will. In short, if this were an etown.com product review, PURE DIVA would earn roughly the same "Performance" rating as TiVo or ReplayTV on the basis of this little demo. It's no slouch at "Look & Feel," either -- the user interface appeared to be logically laid out, and there was visual unity between the PVR and DVD functions. In the "Value" category, too, PURE DIVA would be a chart-topper: What could be a better value than free bundled software? But turning to "Features"... The bad news At least in its initial release, PURE DIVA's sex appeal will probably be diminished by its inability to duplicate two of the handiest functions of the set-top PVRs. First, the software only supports a single TV tuner. That means consumers won't be able to watch one show while recording another, as is possible with ReplayTV and TiVo. Zankowicz said that MGI was working on adding multiple-tuner support to future versions of the product. Second, neither the software nor the PCs it's expected to ship with will have control outputs to cable boxes and satellite receivers. In other words, you won't be able to switch channels through the software. If you're sitting at the PC and have the set-top boxes in your line of sight, you could always use a conventional remote control to channel-surf without standing up. But forget about telling PURE DIVA in advance to record Larry Sanders on HBO and then Frasier on NBC; the software will simply have no way of communicating instructions to the cable box. (The PC's TV tuner card could switch among conventional broadcast channels, but scrambled or compressed video sources would have to be switched via the set-top box "upstream" of the computer.) So, while the software is a really neat added value for tech-head consumers who are planning a computer upgrade for the new millennium, it's unlikely to be a major challenger in the PVR market. Not until DIVA 2.0, anyway. Please feel free to post your comments in Your Two Cents, a folder on our Message Board. This story is an etown.com exclusive. etown.com

To: Stoctrash who wrote (45785)	10/5/1999 1:23:00 PM
From: DiViT	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 50808

I glossed over this before. #reply-11420455 "Pace Micro Technology plc, Europe's largest manufacturer of digital set-top boxes, announced today the roll out of Interactive TV services on its DOCSIS-compliant set-top box for Cable & Wireless Communications' customers in Northwest England" John said: "The Pace cable box uses Broadcom's cable modem chips, and Broadcom's Front end chip." Not true, read the article it says: "It is integrated with Cisco Systems, Inc.'s DOCSIS-compliant cable modem, powered by Hitachi's super SH3 chip, and Broadcom's integrated, front-end transmission chip. " The rest of the box is the Cube Avia settop chipset as part of the Pace win -> c-cube.com Broadcom has very little in this box, and the part that they do have in it, is under development at Cube thanks to the TV/COM acquisition -> c-cube.com