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

To: Black-Scholes who wrote (46476)	10/22/1999 5:53:00 PM
From: DiViT	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

"who else could do this?" Sony. They already are in Replay and TiVo...

To: Black-Scholes who wrote (46476)	10/22/1999 5:56:00 PM
From: BillyG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

CUBE or Sony could do it. No doubt lots of companies would "like" to do it. Hopefully we will find out soon. P.S. -- Don't forget the BillG presentation at WinHEC in which he used a CUBE encoder and bragged about the technology. If CUBE lost MSFT, then it is their own fault. I'm not saying they lost... but I don't know if they won....

To: Black-Scholes who wrote (46476)	10/23/1999 9:19:00 AM
From: Been-Shinn Tsung	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

Is CUBE one of George Gilder's pick ? Message 11644221

To: Black-Scholes who wrote (46476)	10/23/1999 10:06:00 AM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

Putting Data in the video stream.................... cableworld.com Headend Creates, Directs Interactive Traffic By Jim Barthold The cable headend is as important to successful interactivity as the set-top box. "It will be the consolidator and sort of the traffic cop of all the interactivity to the home," agreed Adam Tom, Terayon Communication Systems Inc.'s group marketing director. Advanced interactive OpenCable set-tops have three tuners: in-band video; in-band data through a DOCSIS modem; and out-of-band for messaging and access control. There is a move afoot to put both video and data on the MPEG video stream for interactive applications, generally following Advanced TV Enhance-ment Forum (ATVEF) guidelines for inserting HTML data into video streams. "Since everyone is going digital, you actually have much more flexibility to put the data as part of the digital video programming," explained Ji Zhang, CTO-V-Bits Inc. Zhang suggested that data can be slipped into the MPEG stream to free up data channel bandwidth and offer a seam- less interactive experience. "Originally, the video programming had only video and audio. Now people are starting to mix data into it as well," he continued. Zhang pointed out that mixing data into the MPEG stream is superior to the analog way of using the vertical blanking interval (VBI) "because there is literally a synchronized delivery as well as unlimited bandwidth." V-Bits has productized headend technologies that accomplish this and is working with several industry vendors, including General Instrument Corp., Zhang said. V-Bits is not out on its own here. Terayon, for instance, is using its recently acquired Imedia Corp. statistical multiplexing expertise to address the opportunity. Tom, an Imedia founder, joined Terayon as part of the acquisition. He said that the data can come from multiple sources: the network feed or from a cable operator, then be inserted into the video stream. "Data that is going to be clicked on by a lot of people will be sent in-band and for data that will be clicked on by fewer people it will be sent synchronized out-of-band (DOCSIS)," he explained. Yvette Gordon, VP-interactive technologies for Sea-Change International Inc. also saw the flow moving in a different direction. "It's possible to actually do local-based services and video streaming over DOCSIS," she pointed out. "You can have all of your data terminated locally at the headend and have video streaming from the headend, whereas you have data coming from the Internet. To mix and match is very technically feasible." Set-top makers want to make sure they know what kind of signal they'll be getting. "Six months from now, I'll have Imedia, V-Bits and our product line that will add that capability," said Kevin Keefe, director, product marketing for General Instrument Corp's digital network systems group. Bill Wall, Scientific-Atlanta Inc.'s subscriber networks group technical director is looking at using the international Digital Audio-Video Council (DAVIC) standard rather than quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) to merge video and data. "This," said Wall, "allows you to have very high-speed downstream connectivity without having to have a separate QAM tuner in the set-top to support it." There's also C-Cube Micro-systems Inc.'s take on how best to get converged video and data to the subscriber home. "We've developed software here that uses special features that we have in our silicon to support this two-way out-of-band for cable applications," said Brian Johnson, VP-advanced development. "We'll be coming out with things that make use of that." One thing is certain. The headend is a key piece of the interactive puzzle. "Clearly, the network and what goes in the headend is very important," Wall emphasized. "We talk about the box a lot, obviously, but it really does have to have the network behind it with a lot of bandwidth." (October 25, 1999)