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

To: DiViT who wrote (27665)	1/7/1998 1:03:00 PM
From: BillyG	Respond to of 50808

The marketing hype and press is often more impressive than the reality. (I know you know this well!) The reality is they are using CUBE's silicon, at least in DVD players.

To: DiViT who wrote (27665)	1/7/1998 2:00:00 PM
From: Ian deSouza	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

Here's page on LG's DVD solution. lge.co.kr

To: DiViT who wrote (27665)	1/7/1998 10:09:00 PM
From: CPAMarty	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

can someone more technical than i give us their opinion as to whether the following is serious competition? twice.virtualmarketing.com DTS, THX 5.1 Made Simpler By New Chips - -January 8, 1998 By Joseph Palenchar Motorola and Cirrus Logic plan CES demonstrations of proprietary technologies that pack Dolby Digital and DTS Digital Surround decoding onto a single chip to drive down the cost of dual-format decoders. The chips could be incorporated in DVD players, receivers, preamp/processors and outboard decoders. Details about Cirrus Logic's chip, including pricing and delivery, were unavailable at press time, but Motorola said its chip, which operates at speeds up to 100 MIPS [millions of instructions per second] also promises to lower the cost of LucasFilm's THX 5.1 audio processing. The chip's ample processing capacity will simultaneously perform Dolby Digital decoding and THX 5.1 processing, the company explained. The DSP56362 "will be the first solution for AC-3 [Dolby Digital], THX 5.1, and DTS on one chip, " said Paul Bundschuh, strategic marketing and applications manager for digital audio operations at Motorola's Consumer Systems Group. "Today, that requires three chips." Motorola's chip is also flexible enough to perform virtual surround processing, digital soundfield processing, and equalization simultaneously with multichannel digital audio decoding, the company said. Motorola's chip, which will be available in volume in the third quarter, also supports HDCD (High Definition Compatible Digital) music-CD decoding and MPEG2 multichannel audio decoding. The chip also promises to "drive the cost of DTS down to the software royalty," Bundschuh said. "Our number one goal" is to bring products with all three technologies down to "mainstream price points," he added. Despite the cost advantage, Bundschuh wasn't certain whether mainstream receivers would incorporate THX 5.1 in 1998 because of LucasFilm's "stringent" amplification requirements. One audio supplier also pointed to LucasFilm licensing costs that he considered "high." Whatever the impact this year on THX 5.1 pricing, the chip will help eliminate consumer confusion over incompatible multichannel DVD-soundtrack standards, Bundschuh said. Products incorporating the chip will "make it simple for end users" because the products will switch automatically between Dolby Digital and DTS when the appropriate bitstream is detected, he explained. It's also possible that the chip could be used in future DVD music players to support more than one multichannel DVD-music standard. With the proper software, Bundschuh said, "it could support emerging DVD audio standards," but "we're not saying yet that it will do [the Sony/Philips-proposed] Super Audio CD and multichannel PCM."