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To: John Rieman who wrote (25442)	11/18/1997 7:52:00 PM
From: DiViT	Respond to of 50808

04:10p DVD market won't take off until 1999, publisher says According to Infotech publisher Ted Pine, the DVD market won't take off until 1999 -- and shipment of DVD drives will exceed those of CD-ROMs in the year 2000. Pine was speaking at a DVD forum at Comdex. Story to follow. - Robert Lemos, ZDNN zdnet.com

To: John Rieman who wrote (25442)	11/18/1997 8:09:00 PM
From: William T. Katz	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

Isn't the Chromatic mpact a fairly heavy-duty chip in order to implement a number of functions using software? In other words, doesn't it draw a lot more power than the ZiVA and therefore will not be the chip of choice for laptops? MPEG-2 encoders are the way, but don't forget MPEG-1 encoders. The MPEG-1 encoders in consumer devices could be a nice cheap M-JPEG alternative.

To: John Rieman who wrote (25442)	11/18/1997 8:13:00 PM
From: DiViT	Respond to of 50808

Philips Electronics Develops DVD -Rewritable Technology ÿ 11/18/97 PR Newswire (Copyright (c) 1997, PR Newswire) ÿ LAS VEGAS, Nov. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Building upon its proven leadership in CD-ReWritable technology, Philips Electronics today announced that its has developed DVD+ReWritable media with a storage capacity of 3.0 gigabytes. Production samples of the new discs will be available soon for evaluation. The announcement was made today by Jan Oosterveld, Senior Director for Corporate Strategy at Philips Electronics, before a gathering of leading CD-ReWritable drive and media manufacturers attending Fall Comdex. In his remarks to the group, Oosterveld called the development of DVD -ReWritable media "an important step in the continuing evolution of DVD+ReWritable as the optical storage standard of the future." Developed over the past several months at Philips' Optical Disc Technology Center in Eindhoven, the new DVD+ReWritable media have the familiar look and feel of CDs and DVD -ROM discs. Under the DVD+ReWritable format, only minimal features are added to the existing DVD -ROM specification to permit random rewritability and allow DVD -ROM drives to read DVD+ReWritable discs at virtually no additional cost. Philips DVD+ReWritable discs measure 120 mm in diameter and can be written in CLV and CAV modes.. The new discs have a track pitch of 0.80 mm, a user date rate of 7 to 17 Mbits/sec. and allow more than 100,000 direct overwrite (DOW) cycles. "The development of DVD+ReWritable media is an important milestone in the evolution of DVD+ReWritable as the logical successor to the CD-ReWritable format," said Cornelis Klik, Project Director for DVD at Philips Electronics. "Through these efforts, we have shown that the DVD+ReWritable specification is maturing into a very reliable and workable standard. As the leading developer of CD-ReWritable products, the production of DVD+ReWritable media is a very logical step for us." While details on volume shipments and pricing are being finalized, evaluation and testing will be initiated. It is anticipated that the discs will be available by the time the first DVD+ReWritable drives are introduced sometime in 1998. The availability of DVD+ReWritable media will satisfy the growing need for media that can support high capacity data interchange, archiving and multimedia applications. The specification for DVD+ReWritable was announced last September and timed to ensure a smooth migration path from CD to DVD . By building upon the proven success of CD technology, the DVD -ReWritable format is designed to preserve a customer's present and future investments in drive and media products. The DVD+Writable specification includes key provisions on capacity, cost-per-megabyte, performance and compatibility. Developed by Philips, Sony and Hewlett Packard, the specification is based on input from a number of groups, including end-users, PC manufacturers, CD- and DVD -ROM drive manufacturers, media manufacturers and software developers. The specification has been submitted to ECMA, a recognized international standards association, for review and adoption. Philips Optical Storage, a part of Philips Electronics, is displaying its complete line of optical storage products at the Philips Electronics booth (L-2625) in the Las Vegas Convention Center all week. Philips Electronics of the Netherlands is one of the world's largest electronics companies with sales of $41 billion in 1996. Its 269,900 employees in more than 60 countries are active in the areas of lighting, semiconductors and components, consumer products, professional products and systems, and software and services. Quoted on the NYSE, London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and other stock exchanges, it is a world leader in lighting, color television sets, electric shavers and recorded music (PolyGram). /CONTACT: Gary Yoshimura of Philips Electronics, 408-570-5693, or gary.yoshimura@na.km.philips.com; or Rinske Stege of Philips Media Relations, +31-40-273-4866/ 15:33 EST

To: John Rieman who wrote (25442)	11/18/1997 8:18:00 PM
From: DiViT	Respond to of 50808

Comdex - Compaq, Toshiba Demo Mpact DVD Jacqueline Emigh ÿ 11/18/97 Newsbytes News Network (c) Copyright 1997 Newsbytes News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. ÿ LAS VEGAS, NEVADA, U.S.A., 1997 NOV 18 (NB). In an event held last night at the Hard Rock Cafe by Chromatic Research, together with Compaq, Toshiba and other DVD customers, exhausted reporters got a chance to rest their feet at a home entertainment center, and enjoy the technology they had come to cover. Also at the event, which was attended by Newsbytes, Chromatic announced that Compaq has chosen its Mpact 2 media processor engine for the Compaq PC Theatre 9100. Compaq has already used Chromatic's Mpact in its home theater, and is now moving up to Mpact 2, said Compaq software engineer Bill Ellis, speaking with Newsbytes in a corner of the room where Compaq was showing the DVD title "The Mask" to journalists and other first-day-of-Comdex attendees. Ellis told Newsbytes that Mpact boosts the performance of the Compaq home theater's Intel Pentium processor with MMX by offloading digital processing from the CPU (CPU). With the Mpact 2, the percentage of processing performed by the CPU diminishes to 10 percent, down from 48 to 60 percent for the Mpact 1, according to the engineer. "This is especially helpful for multiprocessing applications," he asserted. Other capabilities of Mpact 2 include full screen, 30-frame-per-second MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group)-2 video, even during action scenes; six-channel Dolby Digital surround sound audio decoding; Chromabright and Chromadjust technology for realtime control over color, brightness, and contrast; AVSync technology for precise audio-video synchronization; and CSS (Content Scrambling System) for Hollywood movie playback. Implemented in the Compaq home entertainment center with the use of a PCI add-in card from STB Systems, Inc., Mpact DVD is software upgradable. Companies now readying Mpact PCI add-in cards include Leadtek Research and E4. Seated at tables and leather couches, or strolling between demo stations, the attendees also got a chance to listen to the Hard Rock's music selections; interact with an actress playing Marilyn Monroe; and view demos by fellow Chromatics partners Toshiba; Micron; LG Semicon; and SGS Thomson. More information about Mpact is available on the Web at chromatic.com . Reported by Newsbytes News Network: newsbytes.com . Press Contact: Cindy Morgan-Olsen, Technology Solutions, 212-696-2000