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To: Stoctrash who wrote (24682)	10/31/1997 3:55:00 PM
From: BillyG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

Negative DVD article says that worldwide DVD player sales are now expected to be "only" 1 million units this year. I thought that was the original forecast?........................... newsbytes.com DVD Sales Yet To Take Off After One Year ****DVD Sales Yet To Take Off After One Year 10/31/97 TOKYO, JAPAN, 1997 OCT 31 (NB) -- By Martyn Williams. A year on from its commercial launch, the DVD-Video market remains lackluster and accurate sales figures very hard to come by. DVD sales began on November 1, 1996, when Toshiba Corporation [TOKYO:6502] and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. [TOKYO:6752], better known by it's Panasonic brand-name, launched, between them, three models of DVD-Video players in Japan. Sales of the machines followed in the United States, in March. They had been due to begin before Christmas 1996 but a lack of software titles led manufacturers to delay the launch. They were worried that a slow start to sales of the players would gain it the failure label. Later this year, in August, sales officially began in most of Asia. European consumers are yet to see an official launch as manufacturers are still trying to decide on an audio system to use. US and Japanese machines use the Dolby AC-3 surround system but Philips wants MPEG-2 digital audio to be the European standard. It looks like it will be, but an awaited final decision means no players and no software until something is decided. Different stories are being told about the current DVD-Video market by different manufacturers but one thing is for sure, the slow and fragmented start to sales of both hardware and software means most projections won't be fulfilled until a year or two after the manufacturer's original plans. A spokeswoman for Matsushita Electric told Newsbytes, "To the end of September, our cumulative production of video players was 400,000 units." She added that some of those players were for OEM customers. The total size of the DVD-Video market is estimated to be around one million units this year, she said. The company estimates the player-only market to reach 80 million by 2,000 and the for DVD, including software, to become a five trillion yen ($41.5 billion) market by 2,000. Toshiba said today that it estimated the Japanese DVD-Video player market to be between 200,000 and 300,000 units this year. In the United States, the company predicted industry-wide sales of around 600,000 units or more, if the Christmas season was good. "Toshiba is now producing 30,000 units per month for the world market," said a company spokesman. "We are particularly strong in the U.S. market with a 40 percent market share. In Japan, we're sharing the market with Pioneer and Matsushita." In summer 1996, when it announced its first DVD-Video players, the company said, "A surge in interest in DVD is now expected, and worldwide demand for DVD- related hardware, including ROM and RAM drives and video players, is expected to reach 120 million units in 2000. Add software and applications, and DVD is expected to yield a multi-trillion-yen market." Today, the spokesman told Newsbytes, "To put it briefly, we slipped on the forecast by one year, so we're now predicting that for 2001." He said, the company anticipates the DVD-ROM and RAM markets to be worth $16 billion, DVD-Video to be $8 billion and DVD-Audio to be $4 billion in 2001. By that time, the software market is expected to be worth $120 billion. "The amount of software is steadily picking up. In Japan, there were 260 titles in September and we expect 500 by the end of 1997. In the United States, there are 200 now and should be 500 by the end of the year," the spokesman added. (19971031/Reported By Newsbytes News Network: newsbytes.com /DVDVEX/PHOTO) "The Pulse of the Information Age" Newsbytes News Network newsbytes.com 24-hour computer, telecom and online news

To: Stoctrash who wrote (24682)	10/31/1997 4:18:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

forget Death Star. EchoStar looks for bigger things. Every Channel needs an Encoder......................... ijumpstart.com Basic Cable in The Sky: Satellite Plan Poses Serious Cable Threat <Picture><Picture><Picture> DC - Cable could kiss its best competitive advantage over DBS goodbye in 3 years under an aggressive Capitol Broadcasting Company plan to launch a Ka-band satellite that would allow DBS providers to transmit 1,700 local broadcast nets and a handful of HDTV channels to the entire U.S. market. Capitol pres James Goodmon stole the show at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing Thurs with his "basic cable in the sky" project that could make Rupert Murdoch's defunct Death Star (500 channels of Sky) look like child's play. The plan: launch a Ka-band satellite to the middle of orbital slots controlled by EchoStar [DISH], PrimeStar and DirecTV that would let DBS providers transmit as many local broadcast nets in every DMA as any cable op. Broadcast stations will fund the initial $800mln cost of the project through a company that'll oversee construction of 159 uplink sites and the deployment of 24-inch dish receivers. While this threatens to destroy cable's key asset in its ability to transmit local signals, it's still too soon to panic. Congress would have to grant satellite the same compulsory copyright license as cable in order for the project to get off the ground. "This is not a business unless we get compulsory copyright," Goodman says. Judiciary's courts and intellectual subcommittee chmn Howard Coble (R-NC) and Rep Rick Boucher (D-VA) were enthusiastic about Goodmon's plan, but Coble doesn't intend to hold a hearing on the topic until Feb. And while EchoStar could use Capitol's Ka-band bird to transmit local broadcast nets, it looks like chmn/CEO Charlie Ergen could be wasting $500mln+ on his plans for the EchoStar III bird and a planned 4th satellite. EchoStar hopes to use those satellites to market local signals, but the company will only be able to hit 30% of HH. "We can't afford to wait 3 years" for Goodmon's project to launch, Ergen told CableFAX yesterday before he testified at a separate hearing on video competition. (Check out the diagram on Page 5 for more on Capitol's plan.)