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

To: DiViT who wrote (24607)	10/29/1997 4:44:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

A Divx defender........................ John Barker writes <Picture><Picture><Picture> The universal condemnation of the Divx concept has been so bitter that you would think the guys were peddling child porn. Is this merely a knee-jerk reaction to something new? Some have even raised the environmental argument against throwaway discs. Others are arguing about Big Brother knowing what you are viewing. What tosh. It's as daft as objecting to the fact that the telco knows who you're ringing! To me the Divx model deserves consideration. There is not much doubt that DVD-Video will supersede the videocassette and the laserdisc. There are only two retail modes: rental and sell-through. Until now DVD-Video has been seen as a sell-through concept but some US stores are already doing rental. The flaw is that people will presumably take the disc home and record it to VHS. And you still have the bothersome task of taking the disc back by the due date to avoid incurring a fine. The Divx model has a lot to commend it because most adults only watch a video once. If you want to watch a video again and again there is nothing to stop you. You can do that in the Divx model, or you can simply pay five times as much and get a plain vanilla DVD-Video disc (playable on Divx remember). If Video on Demand is viable for people with broadband access then surely Divx is viable for people who haven't got broadband access? Divx is merely packaged broadband. On the face of it, it's all a bit academic for us on this side of the Atlantic because there are as yet no plans to launch Divx outside the US. But the principle of pay-as-you-go has enormous ramifications. I'd be sorry to see the concept buried before it is out of the bag.