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Technology Stocks : COMS & the Ghost of USRX w/ other STUFF -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: drmorgan who wrote (10274)	12/5/1997 11:33:00 PM
From: Scrapps	Respond to of 22053

Let's petition for a name change. Something like RoboCom. <g> My wife keeps telling me that the name US Robotics would really get her attention.

To: drmorgan who wrote (10274)	12/8/1997 5:46:00 PM
From: Moonray	Respond to of 22053

Intel Takes Lonely Road To Digital TV (12/08/97; 2:00 p.m. EST) By Junko Yoshida, EE Times Admitting the "smashing failure" of its initial digital-TV strategy, Intel has laid out new plans -- independently of DTV Team partners Compaq and Microsoft -- for bringing the PC into the digital-television age. The plan calls for the development of PCs that receive all DTV format TV broadcasts specified by the Advanced Television System Committee (ATSC) spec; Intel-architecture-based hardware reference designs for four DTV set-top categories (basic set-top box, entry-level set-top computer, premium set-top computer, and full-blown PC theater); and the formation of an industry-wide Open Digital Broadcast Initiative, which would develop "video plus data" bit-stream specifications and HTML extensions. Intel is apparently dropping its insistence on Microsoft operating systems, user interfaces, and browsers. "We are promoting an open system," said Mark Richmond, business-unit manager of Intel's broadcast products. "Everything we are showing here today is not to postulate Net Show or Windows." The Open Digital Broadcast Initiative -- with the envisioned participation of major satellite-, terrestrial-, and cable-service providers and their suppliers -- would start work early next year on a specification that would let broadcasters author a "video plus data" application for playback across all transport mechanisms and hardware platforms. The initiative will complement the efforts of an ATSC sub-working group developing a data-broadcasting spec. It will also complement the work of the recently formed Ad Hoc Group to Study the DTV Applications Software Environment (DASE), which is examining API issues. "We would very much like the DASE to consider our new initiative," Richmond said. "But we are not touching on the API issue; that could take several years." Microsoft representatives did not attend the DTV briefing and did not respond to Intel's announcement by press time. Asked whether Intel would solicit Microsoft's participation in the Open Digital Broadcast Initiative, Ron Whittier, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Content Group, said, "They are invited." Whittier dismissed suggestions of discord among the DTV Team members, saying that Intel, Microsoft, and Compaq have only been having "healthy arguments, where we differ on implementation issues." Under the initial DTV Team plan, the three had jointly requested that broadcasters roll out DTV broadcast in lockstep with the computer industry's PC '9X road map. Whittier conceded last week that the proposal had been "a smashing failure." Other Intel executives said that at the time the document was drafted, Intel had what one source called "a naive notion of how the [TV] business works." Without agreed-upon specs for broadcast file transfer, TV-image location and control, and an extended HTML feature list, the cable-, satellite- and terrestrial-broadcast segments could be expected to adopt proprietary methods, forcing content developers to author multiple versions of video and data programs. What Intel chairman Andy Grove once called the "war for eyeballs" could wind up a "war for a non-existent market," Whittier said. Intel's plan forgoes use of an MPEG Main Profile @ High Level decoder, instead specifying Hitachi's All-Format Decoder (AFD) algorithm on a Pentium II processor to accommodate all ATSC-approved video formats. AFD, developed at Hitachi's Digital Media Systems Laboratory, in Princeton, N.J., can approximate higher-bit-rate HDTV bit streams to simplify decoding and reduce memory requirements for picture storage. Intel is implementing the algorithm now in a Pentium II-based PC. A spokesman at Hitachi confirmed the companies are working together under an evaluation arrangement but added that no licensing pact has been signed. At the briefing, Intel demonstrated video encoded in the 1,280-by-720, 30-Hz progressive format on a Pentium II machine. Senior staff architect Serge Rutman promised the company's software-decode strategy will ensure the PC will "never go dark" but added that the display resolution will be limited to standard definition. Intel's envisioned entry-level DTV model is a basic cable set-top architecture developed with Network Computer Inc. The companies recently submitted their proposal to the CableLabs-led OpenCable Initiative, said Mike Aymar, an Intel vice president and general manager. The basic set-top would display only TV programming and an electronic program guide (EPG). Aymar predicted that the Pentium II will become the most prevalent processor for all PC categories by the third quarter, making it possible for an entry-level machine to use a Pentium II running at 266 MHz. "By 1999, the Pentium II-based set-top, without fixed MPEG-2 video and AC-3 audio codecs, will become a very low-cost proposition," Aymar said. Whittier said that Intel will complete the development of hardware-reference designs for DTV receiver cards in the first quarter and that commercial activity will start in the second half. Whether the company will produce motherboards for set-tops "has not been decided," he said. o~~~ O