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

To: John Rieman who wrote (24418)	10/26/1997 9:31:00 AM
From: Patrice Gigahurtz	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

In the past has CUBE's 4th qtr been a winner ? I mean compared to her previous three qtrs ? Also, recall that the China market goes through a slowing period with regard to buying VideoCD players. Is that slowing period in the spring ? Thanks (long on CUBE but covered calls keep me awake as well as naked puts)

To: John Rieman who wrote (24418)	10/26/1997 10:55:00 AM
From: BillyG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

I like this quote from the article. The future of CUBE's codec business: With the announcement of C-Cube Microsystems' single-chip MPEG 2 codec, which both encodes and decodes, MPEG 2 encoding systems have become more affordable. Jonathan Cassell, analyst at Dataquest, predicts that by 1999 or 2000 the price of an MPEG 2 chip should come down into the $50 range, from around $1,000 for a set of 14 chips once needed to do the same job. "Up to now, there's been a small market [for MPEG 2] -- a few professionals and experts," Cassell says. "The new codec changes the whole equation from a few thousand units to a million in just a few years." While the biggest-volume market for MPEG 2 today is professional broadcast applications and satellite television compression, he says the consumer market for DVD-recordable players, digital TV, and videoconferencing devices will grow as prices shrink. <Picture> For content developers, an MPEG 2 encoder system is the key to jumping on the MPEG 2 bandwagon. These encoders convert ordinary video, from a camcorder or videocassette recorder, into MPEG 2 files. Any content producer interested in delivering the best possible picture quality while using the highest possible data compression (in the ballpark of 50:1 to 100:1) should be interested in MPEG 2. Experts consider DVD movies (which use MPEG 2) superior to laserdiscs; while laserdisc's horizontal resolution is 425 lines, DVD goes up to 500 lines. Higher bit rates are the reason: DVD video averages 3.5Mbps, more than double the bit rate of MPEG 1. Some DVD recorders also permit variable bit rates, so there can be more bits per second during action-packed scenes and fewer during static moments. <Picture> But DVD represents just one possible implementation of MPEG 2. At the rate of 6Mbps, MPEG 2 delivers quality that is the same as the best broadcast-quality digital videotape (the component D1 format), with 720 by 480 resolution (30fps). And MPEG 2 will also be used for consumer HDTV signals, although none of the encoders listed in the chart could handle resolutions higher than 720 by 576. <Picture> MPEG 2 encoding is a necessity for anyone involved in DVD-ROM production, but the higher quality may also be suitable for CD-ROM applications where a fast drive -- 4X or higher -- can be counted on (a kiosk, for example). And MPEG 2 video is working its way into hard-disk-based presentations, intranet training videos, and high-bandwidth video-on-demand.