Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Stoctrash who wrote (25242)	11/13/1997 10:07:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

All of this equipment needed, and only months to buy it.................... ijumpstart.com Compression Looms Large; Networks Plan 45 Mbps Feeds <Picture><Picture><Picture> Expect to see demand for products capable of working with highly compressed digital signals to increase once the digital television era arrives. The top broadcast networks have not announced formal plans yet, but VTN has learned that they intend to deliver feeds to affiliates over existing satellite networks, forcing them to compress the signal down to about 45 Mbps. That means broadcasters will have to figure out a way to add logos, weather warnings and local advertising in the compressed realm because decompressing the signal and then crunching it back down to the 19.3 Mbps rate for over-the-air broadcast will likely cause it to crash. A 45 Mbps delivery rate would take the heaviest toll on high-definition signals. A single HDTV feed requires about 1.5 Gbps at baseband level, while a standard-definition signal could be delivered almost losslessly at 45. Even three or four standard signals can be decompressed from 45 Mbps without too much trouble. Few manufacturers gearing up for high-definition expect stations will work with uncompressed signals. However, 45 Mbps is an awfully tight squeeze. 'Most Critical Issue' "To me, this is the most critical issue (surrounding DTV)," said Mike D'Amore, director of marketing at Phillips BTS. "At 45, you can probably bring it back to baseband for some simple manipulation. The problem is that if you try to do too much, move too many pixels around, you run into problems on a pixel-by-pixel basis." All of the network representatives contacted by VTN said they intend to provide a signal that affiliates can work with. But exactly how much flexibility will be available is unclear. "There is no other way of carrying high data rates from one point to another across city boundaries uncompressed," said Andy Setos, senior vice president of engineering at Fox, who added that the network is still debating whether to deliver feeds via satellite or fiber. Fox is planning to announce its DTV plans at its January affiliates meeting in Los Angeles. "It's going to be compressed satellite. We don't know what rate yet," said Charlie Jablonski, senior vice president of engineering at NBC. "Our signal will be good enough to do simple things with. We won't put our affiliates in a bad position by giving them something they can't work with." 19.3 First? At CBS, Senior Vice President of Technology Joseph Flaherty said the network will go with 45 Mbps, but is likely to provide a 19.3 signal in the first few weeks of service "just to get something on the air." Flaherty said the network has done some wired tests of 45 Mbps feeds "and it looks flexible enough for editing and for stations to insert IDs, messages and promos." "I suppose you can't do mattes and special effects, but you don't need to do these things at the station anyway," he said. "You need to be able to fade to black, put out emergency messages..." Flaherty said that bringing a 45 Mbps HD signal back to baseband is not a viable option. However, he said it may be possible to bring it up to an intermediate rate, such as 360 Mbps, manipulate it and then push it back to 19.3 Mbps. Such a scenario would boost the need for wideband network equipment. Although expensive, 360 Mbps routers could fall within the budgets of top-tier stations, allowing the technology totrickle down to smaller stations in a few years. There are a number of ways broadcasters might be able to avoid the pain of a highly compressed signal. One is for the networks to forgo true HDTV feeds for the initial rollout period. Few HD sets are expected to be in the hands of consumers in the first year or two of service, and a widescreen digital signal will provide a seemingly full HD picture in all but the largest and most expensive screens. Such a signal would also take less of a hit decompressing to baseband. Full Plans in January None of the network representatives contacted by VTN would say what their mix of standard, widescreen and full HD programming would be. New technology might come to the rescue as well. Snell & Wilcox's Mole system decompresses the signal to baseband for limited image manipulation and then losslessly recompresses it back to the original bit rate. BTS and others are working on MPEG splicing equipment that allows images and clips to be added into a compressed signal, but no one has showed a working system yet. The question of what rate to deliver network signals essentially comes down to cost. The networks are likely to use transponders they already own or lease. Long-haul fiber services would be prohibitively expensive, although wide band satellite feeds in the 23 GHz or 40 GHz realms might be economically feasible provided the networks are able to turn a profit with digital services. Flaherty said one way to get the costs down is for the broadcast industry to standardize on satellite technology. "We could see some real economies of scale if everyone was using similar encoders on the uplink side and decoders on the downlink," he said. The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) are looking to set up some type of voluntary interface standard. (CBS, 212/975-1732; Fox, 310/369-3686; NBC, 212/664-4440; BTS, 310/966-2700)

To: Stoctrash who wrote (25242)	11/13/1997 10:17:00 PM
From: Bill DeMarco	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

Investor's Business Daily Digital Television Will Spark Market Boom INEN Date: 11/14/97 For the first time, the market will shape the future of television technology. New and open standards for high-definition television now allow companies to adopt advanced technologies quickly and give consumers an entirely new and interactive information window to the world. As the Clinton administration seeks to limit encryption software, expand universal-access guarantees and pursue other types of federal industrial policy, it would do well to learn from the revolutionary change already occurring in the television industry. A year ago, the ''Grand Alliance'' of consumer electronics makers and broadcasters seemed likely to prevail as arbiters of new federal mandates for HDTV. The Grand Alliance lobbied for Federal Communications Commission standards covering every facet of digital broadcasting. Without such rules, alliance members argued, the TV industry would lack the certainty it needed to pursue advanced technology. Of course, the only real certainty would have been a static technology wedded to a guaranteed market -locking out new competitors and forcing consumers to pay for a system they had no hand in choosing. But a new and effective coalition of computer makers, cable companies, Hollywood producers and directors, and a few conservative think tanks worked with the FCC and a small minority in Congress to halt the Grand Alliance's juggernaut. The alliance was forced to the negotiating table. This led to several weeks of exhausting talks and heightened public scrutiny. In the end, the Grand Alliance agreed to remove from any FCC standard the vast majority of specifications that would advance more quickly in a market setting. Specs remain, unfortunately, for audio formats and compression algorithms - two steadily advancing technologies. Overall, the market and the consumer gained the leading role in crafting standards for digital TV. They could also more easily develop entirely new forms of television - and fundamentally redefine the medium. Top- down technology mandates don't work. They're spawned from political compromises among myopic special interests. But such rules constrain the adaptability and growth of new technology to what is feasible today rather than tomorrow. And they impose costs on both consumers and vital industries. The lost economic opportunities are clear. With more freedom, the opportunities are plentiful. Less than six months after the FCC agreed to a vastly reduced mandate on HDTV, Microsoft Corp. purchased 11.5% of Comcast Corp., the nation's fourth-largest cable operator, for the tidy sum of $1 billion. More recently, Microsoft said it may invest an equal amount in Tele-Communications Inc. , the nation's largest cable company. It's no accident that Microsoft's investments - including a $500 million bid for WebTV - so closely follow the FCC's rule allowing market forces to replace the 50-year-old, federally mandated TV system. As Microsoft and other high-tech firms expand their business focus to TV, they will change not just the faces of media, but their very nature. Free to experiment in the market with ''computer friendly'' television standards, these firms finally will give consumers the economic freedom to choose among an ever-greater array of television- media options. And the battle lines marking last year's rivals in the TV standards debate will fade as relevant industries discover fresh reasons to compete and ally. Jamie Linen is a former staff member of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Communications and served on the task force that developed the Telecommunications Act of 1996. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (C) Copyright 1997 Investors Business Daily, Inc. Metadata: MSFT CMCSA I/8065 I/4899 E/IBD E/SN1 E/EDIT