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

To: Maya who wrote (50278)	11/9/2000 1:58:03 PM
From: Peter V	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

thanks Maya, there is so much other news that I missed that.

To: Maya who wrote (50278)	11/9/2000 5:26:03 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

Telemann again. No MPEG encoder on the board.............. e-town.com $399 PC CARD RECEIVES AND RECORDS HDTV Manufacturer says add-in will be in stores for holidays 11/8/2000 By David Katzmaier NEW YORK, NY, November 8, 2000 -- Global Telemann Systems Inc last week announced a video card for PCs that can receive and output over-the-air high-definition TV (HDTV). It can also record HDTV to the computer's hard drive. When it hits the market at $399, the HiPix DTV-200 will be the least-expensive method yet of receiving HDTV. Telemann plans to have the card in stores by December of this year. "We are the first people to have delivered cards to beta testers," Telemann's Ray Newstead told etown.com. He said 12 of the cards have been in the hands of select testers for the last couple of months. "We're currently getting the first production run underway and we're go for a December launch, well in time for the Christmas season." PC card manufacturers Pinnacle and Hauppage have previously announced HDTV tuner cards, but neither product made it to market. Hauppage did deliver a card that receives HDTV, but that product outputs only standard TV signals. A two-slot solution The HiPix DTV-200 operates like any other video card. It occupies two PCI slots in a Windows computer, one for the main card and a second for the included expansion card. It provides a pass-through for the computer's current video card. A pair of RF jacks are mounted on the main card; one accepts DTV antenna input, and the other is for cable TV or a standard antenna. Once it receives the signal from the antenna, the DTV-200 decodes and feeds it to a standard TV (at standard resolution only), an SVGA-compatible computer monitor or an HDTV-ready TV. A menu allows the user to select either RGB or component video (Y, Pb, Pr) format, so the card is compatible with just about any HDTV-capable display on the market. HDTV owners with RCA component video inputs on their sets can use inexpensive "breakout cables" to convert the card's 15-pin connector to the appropriate physical connection. Since HDTV broadcasts can potentially incorporate Dolby Digital 5.1-channel surround audio, the card also has the appropriate digital audio output. The PC as HDTV VCR HDTV recording is one of the most revolutionary capabilities of the DTV-200. Current stand-alone DTV set-top boxes and HDTVs do not allow the user to record high-definition material in full resolution. The only way consumers could previously record HDTV was to use the combination of a Panasonic TU-DST50 set-top box and a PV-HD1000 D-VHS VCR. The DTV-200, on the other hand, records full-quality HDTV programs to the computer's hard disc. It actually passes the full MPEG bitstream to the drive. According to Newstead, an hour's worth of 1080i HDTV occupies 7.7 Gigabytes of space, or about 2.2 Megabytes per minute. Standard video gets HDTV treatment A hardware video scalar -- also part of the package -- can convert standard television signals to any of five resolutions. The signals are input through the card's S-video, yellow RCA video or regular antenna inputs. The result is potentially a tremendous image quality improvement; most DTV set-top boxes do not have scaling capability. Newstead stressed that scaling happens in hardware (as opposed to software) so the PC's main processor isn't overly taxed. The five resolutions include 1080i and 720p HDTV in a widescreen (16:9) aspect ratio, as well as a standard-screen (4:3) version of 1080i. The card can also scalewidescreen 480i DVD to progressive-scan 480p, producing a more film-like image. The final pre-set resolution is an XGA (1024 x 768) output for computer monitors. The scalar incorporates "3/2 pulldown" to better process film-based video. "We've received requests for additional output resolutions from owners of D-ILA projectors, for example," says Newstead. "We intend to offer them as upgrades in the future, but the initial release has only those five." Although the DTV-200 has inputs for standard video sources, it cannot record those sources like a PVR. It can only record digital TV. Newstead cited the high cost of MPEG encoders in explaining why standard video recording wasn't included.

To: Maya who wrote (50278)	11/9/2000 8:16:39 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

Sony boxes role into New York in December................. multichannel.com Daily Update for November 08, 2000: Cablevision Sets Advanced Digital Test Bethpage, N.Y. -- Cablevision Systems Corp. will begin trials of a new digital-cable product in Long Island, N.Y., next month, with a full-scale rollout expected by the second quarter. President James Dolan said the company plans to deploy "several-thousand" Sony Corp. advanced digital set-top boxes in December and January. "What we're deploying is not what is being deployed by other cable operators at this time," Dolan said in a conference call with analysts. "This is a significant technological leap over what we have been seeing so far." Dolan added that the Cablevision digital product will include real-time video-on-demand capabilities and electronic-mail and interactive-advertising functions. For the quarter, Cablevision said, revenue increased 14 percent to $954.4 million and adjusted operating cash flow rose 7 percent to $236 million. At its cable operations, revenue was up 7 percent to $448.2 million and adjusted operating cash flow increased 10 percent to $205 million. Basic-subscriber growth was 2.1 percent, to 2.8 million customers. At Rainbow Media Holdings Inc. -- which includes cable networks American Movie Classics, Bravo and The Independent Film Channel -- cash flow was up 15 percent to $33 million and revenue rose 11 percent to $78.6 million. Cablevision said separately that a Nov. 10 meeting of shareholders regarding the creation of a Rainbow Media tracking stock would be adjourned for 30 days until Dec. 8. - 11/8/00

To: Maya who wrote (50278)	11/10/2000 4:38:01 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

DVD in China...................................... globalsources.com DVD sales to soar Mainland China's DVD player industry has been developing at a rapid pace since the beginning of 2000. The country sold 3.5 million DVD players in 2000, with output expected to reach 5 million in 2001. There are almost 100 mainland companies active in the DVD player field. Makers noted that DVD players have a 20 percent share of the video disc player market, and this figure is expected to climb to 35 percent or higher in 2001. "There's great potential in the DVD player line," said Wang Zhenfang, R&D manager of Shenzhen Tsinghua Tongfang Co. Ltd. "With China's entry into the WTO, exports of DVD players will increase." New players means competition is tightening. For companies such as Shenzhen AKI Digital Electrical Appliance Co. Ltd, it is increasingly important to keep an eye on costs. Wang Xiong, the company's chief engineer, said the costs of the DVD movement, laser head and decoder chips significantly impact the final product price. The next generation of DVD players will feature recording, Internet and satellite TV reception features. Buyers can expect models to sport higher resolutions and more features. For example, Vtrek Electronics Co. Ltd has announced future releases with dynamic double-focus laser heads, Dolby Digital technology and line by line scanning. Price cuts are in the offing as well. Models have come down in price throughout 2000 and some are now available for about $130 and $145 FOB. The trend to lower quotes looks set to intensify in 2001.