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Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (6388)	7/7/2003 11:28:55 AM
From: runes	Respond to of 25522

<<But the all-inclusive group of tv, DVR, tivo technology + broadband for the PPV seems like a fairly complex mechanism, almost PC-level.>> BINGO! - or in the lexicon of the day - CONVERGENCE! ...That has actually been happening, slowly, over the past couple of years. Right now I have one PC configured with an analog capture card that functions as a TV/PVR/DVR/DVD play-record-burn/CD play-record-burn along with all of the other functions that PCs do so well. ...And I have a second computer set up with an HDTV display/capture card which I will eventually use to drive a widescreen monitor. And they are all networked together so that - anywhere I have a computer, I have a full home entertainment system. ...And it is capable of doing so much more that I haven't even tapped yet - video surveillance, home movie production, internet video phone. As for HDTV itself - it is happening and it is slowly building momentum. But you are still looking at a $3k minimum investment which keeps out the mass market. And there are still technical headaches (the ghost image on your analog reception means dropouts on your HDTV. With digital it is perfection or garbage). But - irrespective of HDTV itself, the video age is upon us. Just as 1)the IBM PC w/floppy brought us data 2)the IBM clones with hard drives brought us graphics 3)Windows with CD ROM brought us audio NOW GHz computing with DVD ROM will bring us VIDEO. ...And yes 1.2 GHz is adequate and my 2.4 GHz is nice. Figure on about 5 GHz to be cruising. The only thing that we are really missing is inexpensive large displays. But wait the 42" plasma displays are down to $3k (3 years ago they were at $6k). So, in another 3 to 6 years as the flat panel technology goes through it's growth curve........