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To: BillyG who wrote (24720)	11/2/1997 1:19:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

Some companies are just good at adding value to their products................................. members.aol.com DiviCom Private Network DiviCom Inc. reports that SatCom Systems has purchased a complete DiviCom compression, multiplexing and data injection system for new satellite services. SatCom's service is targeted at television programmers and business television customers in North and Central America. The SatCom Systems network is DVB-compliant, and makes use of existing integrated receiver/decoders (IRDs) installed by Tee-Comm under its AlphaStar service. After AlphaStar went off the air, SatCom relied on DiviCom to create a new headend to leverage the IRDs. DiviCom supplied its standard compression system to successfully transmit an MPEG-2 signal to the existing IRDs. "We were able to help SatCom get its former AlphaStar customers back on the air without going out in the field to retrieve the AlphaStar IRDs," said Tom Lookabaugh, senior vice president and general manager, DiviCom Inc SatCom was able to update the IRD software remotely by downloading the necessary code over the satellite to the IRDs with minimal downtime. This operation would not have been possible using other configurations, and SatCom was spared the time and expense of replacing IRDs in the field.

To: BillyG who wrote (24720)	11/2/1997 1:42:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

German Digital TV launch lacks content...................................... tele-satellit.com Eat the rich And then there was Germany's only analogue pay-TV channel, Premiere. They officially launched a digital service as well today, utilising the d-box that was declared the "national standard" decoder in newspaper ads by Premiere, its former rival Leo Kirch (DF1) and Germany's cable giant Deutsche Telekom. Premiere officials said their digital offering was "the most attractive programming ever seen on German TV screens." And the most expensive. In theory, there is no additional fee for the digital bouquet - on the other hand, it doesn't offer anything but three time-shifted versions of Premiere's analogue service. To receive them, subscribers will have to rent a decoder for DM20 per month (or maybe buy one for DM1,200.) In addition, there are four pay-per-view channels available which, as the name indicates, are not available without additional payment. All this on top of the monthly license fee of almost DM30 every owner of a TV set has to shell out, in addition to almost DM50 per month every Premiere subscriber has to pay, and maybe even in addition to cable fees. Premiere Digital will initially reach 61 percent of the country's cable households. In the worst case, viewers will end up paying the equivalent of US$75 per month - not for a premium package with dozens of channels, but just for Premiere Digital. Pay per view not included, of course. Pay-TV managers seem to think there's quite a lot of idiots living in Germany who are looking for a more entertaining alternative to flushing their money through the loo. The problem is that in a large country such as Germany, even those idiots may be enough to keep some kind of digital pay-TV alive, hence depriving the rest of the audience of first-class programming.