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Technology Stocks : Zenith - One and Only -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: eric larson who wrote (3532)	12/3/1997 11:05:00 PM
From: Robert Utne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6570

Eric, The numbers are nonsensical. Noticed that Ziff Davis featured this off-the-wall puke. Consider the source. Ziff Davis, publisher of PC Magazine, PC Week and PC Computer, is solidly in the Bill Gates/anti-HDTV camp. Gates is promoting the proposition that 40 million computer users will take advantage of DTV technology and that only a few TV users will want HDTV. His goal is to control the living room as well as the den and office. My guess is that he financed this SRI "research". Virtually no one in the world has experienced HDTV video and audio quality. How, therefore, is SRI Consulting able to obtain an accurate read on HDTV consumer demand? One in four American families purchases a TV each year. That's approximately 25 million TVs sold annually in the US. When HDTV advertising and the great media hype take over next year, what percentage of new TV buyers will purchase an analog TV (dead technology standard) versus an HDTV (new technology standard)? I believe that the vast majority of new TV buyers beginning in mid 1998 will purchase either an HDTV or SDTV versus with very few (at the very low end of the spectrum) choosing NTSC TV. Who would buy a new eight-track player or Beta recorder if they knew that these products would become obsolete within a few years and had the opportunity to purchase the new standard? Also, the pent-up demand for HDTV appears humongous even though the CE companies have been downplaying the advent of HDTV, fearing the loss of current sales. The dynamics will rapidily change when every CE company in the US is promoting HDTV and SDTV. Forget SRI's 10-year forcast. It's pure bullshit. In 10 years, we could all be looking at 3-D TV with Smellavision and getting an over-the-wave backrub, too. My figures: Year....HDTV.............SDTV.........Converters......Analog 1998....250,000(mostly Z). 250,000....0...............20 miilion 1999....2.5 million......4 million....1 milion........15 million 2000....5 miilion........10 million...4 million.......6 million 2001....7.5 million......12.5 million.2 million....... 2 million Note: that for every HDTV, SDTV and conveterr capable of receiving Zenith's patentend vertical side-band transmissions, Zenith earns a royalty.

To: eric larson who wrote (3532)	12/6/1997 2:45:00 PM
From: art slott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6570

Lots of stuff on Intel and digital tv/set-topcomputers at news.com Etimates of 50 million digital households by year 2,000

To: eric larson who wrote (3532)	12/6/1997 2:54:00 PM
From: eric larson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6570

"EYES ON THE PRIZE" (June 1997) Wink sees a future in a more modest interactive television. (article cited on the IATV thread re Wink and Interactive TV development in Japan) redherring.com Excerpts: ... As for cost, set-top manufacturers pay Wink anywhere from $2 to $5 per box depending on volume. Ms. Wilderotter [Pres. & CEO of Wink] estimates that 3 million Wink-enabled boxes will be deployed by the end of this year and hopes to have nearly 1 million activated. To meet this goal, she adds, Wink is in discussions with all the major cable operators, including Time Warner, Continental, TCI, Comcast, and Cox. For cable operators, the lure is that Wink provides a differentiating service in a highly competitive environment. Cable operators typically pay Wink almost $50,000 per server, according to the company. ...Sold, to the lady in sweatpants. It so happens that General Instrument and Scientific-Atlanta are so fond of Wink that they each have equity positions in the company. Toshiba, NTT, and Benchmark Capital have also invested. Toshiba is leading a group of Japanese electronics companies, including Sony, JVC, and most recently Matsushita, that are building Wink engines directly into TV sets along with modems. The modems are significant because they provide a response backchannel, which lets viewers respond to offers or services in the Wink interface. For instance, Nandemo Kanteidan viewers have been bidding from the comfort of their own couches using their remote controls. Ms. Wilderotter believes the response capability will be extremely lucrative as a revenue stream for cable programmers, advertisers, and Wink. The company has developed a response server to aggregate and route responses from Wink clients. If, for example, a subscription banner from Sports Illustrated appears during a football game and the viewer requests the subscription, the server handles the order, matches it with viewer billing information, and forwards it to the appropriate fulfillment house. Although the back-end operation is an unruly beast, Ms. Wilderotter learned the trade well during her 12-year tenure at CableData, the largest provider of MIS and billing services in the cable industry. At this point, the stage is well set for Wink, and the early word from Japan is promising. Muneo Wakabayashi, the executive in charge of Wink ITVision at TV Tokyo, told The Herring that Wink-enhanced programs were averaging "hundreds of interactions with the audience during airtime." He also said that 30,000 Wink-equipped TVs had been sold since last October and that TV Osaka would roll out Wink-enhanced shows in June. Meanwhile, the Intertext Consortium, a group of 55 companies that includes most of the large Japanese electronics, broadcasting, and telecommunications concerns, is actively backing Wink standards. ... Other articles: Message 2895644