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To: DiViT who wrote (26848)	12/17/1997 10:05:00 PM
From: BillyG	Respond to of 50808

More on TCI/NLV.......... cbs.marketwatch.com

To: DiViT who wrote (26848)	12/18/1997 1:15:00 PM
From: BillyG	Respond to of 50808

Panasonic Develops First Single-Chip Digital Television Video Decoder BURLINGTON, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 18, 1997--Panasonic AVC American Laboratories, Inc. (PAVCAL) announced today that it has completed development of the world's first single-chip device that will be able to decode digital television video signals and format them for display when America's new, all-digital broadcasting service begins in the fall of 1998. This low-cost single-chip solution was designed for digital and high definition television (HDTV) receivers, digital set-top boxes that will be used with today's analog TV sets, and computers and other digital products which are being developed now. It is one of the key components in the Digital Television Decoder to be exhibited at Panasonic's booth (N-220) at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, January 8-11, 1998. The major television networks and scores of local broadcast stations are already building new digital facilities, and over-the-air digital TV programs are projected to reach approximately 30% of American households by November 1998, and over 50% by fall 1999. "This is the first single-chip device that can decode and display all of the digital TV signals that can be broadcast, using the new digital standard, in any of the different HDTV or standard definition formats," said Sai Naimpally, PAVCAL Vice President and leader of its DTV development team. "It processes the digital signals in two ways, both decoding them for display in their original format, and converting them for use in today's televisions." The new DTV Broadcast Standard gives TV stations the option of using and switching between any of eighteen different television formats, each suited to different purposes. These formats combine different screen ratios (16:9 'wide-screen' or 4:3, like today's TVs), numbers of horizontal and vertical lines of resolution, and scanning methods (either 'interlaced' scanning, like today's TV displays, or 'progressive' scanning, like computer monitors). The chip--technically termed a "Digital Television MPEG2 Main Profile at High Level Video Decoder" -- functions in both a 'full- spec' mode and a 'down-conversion' mode. In the full-spec mode, it decodes the compressed video signal from the broadcast and outputs the original format, that is, either HDTV (1080-lines interlaced or 720-lines progressive) or SDTV (480-lines interlaced or 480-lines progressive). Single chip operation is made possible by use of 500 MHz concurrent 16 Mbit Rambus(TM) DRAM's. The 'down-conversion' mode converts all compressed video signals to 480-interlaced and 480-progressive formats. This is accomplished by a memory-efficient MPEG down-conversion algorithm developed by PAVCAL. The operation of the decoder chip conforms to both the DTV Broadcast Standard adopted by the Federal Communications Commission and the more-detailed ATSC DTV Standard, drafted by the all-industry Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC). The Panasonic single-chip digital television video decoder is fabricated in a 0.35 micron process in a 240-pin device package. Panasonic AVC American Laboratories, Inc. is the main North American digital television research facility of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Under Jukka Hamalainen, its president, and Mr. Naimpally, the laboratories have conducted research on advanced television and digital television since 1980. Matsushita Electric Corporation of America (MECA), with headquarters in Secaucus, NJ, was established in 1959 and is the principal North American subsidiary of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (MEI), of Osaka, Japan. Along with its subsidiaries and affiliates, MECA -- which markets products under the Panasonic, Technics and Quasar brands -- recorded sales of $7.4 billion in the fiscal year ended March 1997. Matsushita has 26 North American manufacturing sites in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico, and employs 21,000 people here. CONTACT: Panasonic Kurt Praschak Setsu Mizoguchi 201/392-6124 201/271-3297