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To: John Rieman who wrote (28040)	1/13/1998 8:46:00 PM
From: CPAMarty	Respond to of 50808

New IDC Research Uncovers What's Hot and What's Not in the Worldwide Optical Storage Market infoseek.com PRNewswire Tue, Jan 13 1998 Sluggish Start for DVD Keeps Door Open for CD-ROM FRAMINGHAM, Mass., Jan. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- The overall worldwide optical drive market finished 1997 up 54 percent over 1996 with unit shipments reaching 74.7 million, according to new International Data Corporation research, Optical Storage Market: 1997 Year in Review and 1998 Forecast. Looking forward, this market will continue to mature and transition to next- generation technologies, growing an additional 20 percent in aggregate through 1998. CD drives and smaller form factor magneto-optical (MO) did extremely well, while the larger form factor drives continued to struggle. The worldwide CD-ROM market had another outstanding year in 1997, growing 52 percent in unit shipments from 1996. DVD-ROM, on the other hand, was almost non-existent and only began to show a presence in the fourth quarter of 1997. IDC attributes DVD's sluggish start to a lack of compelling titles. "Second generation DVD-ROM drives, which began to appear in volume in 4Q97, are in a much better position to compete with CD-ROM drives," said Wolfgang Schlichting, senior research analyst, Optical/Removable Storage. "Adoption will proceed slowly in the beginning of 1998 but will pick up significantly in the second half of the year as content increases and prices decrease." The CD/DVD-Rec category -- consisting almost exclusively of CD-R, CD-RW, and PD drives -- reached 3.6 million units in 1997 and will grow an additional 70 percent in 1998 to reach 6.2 million units. Worldwide Market Highlights -- The total optical storage market will reach 89.8 million units in 1998. -- CD/DVD-ROM shipments will slow to 18 percent from 1997 to 1998. -- CD/DVD-Rec experienced 142 percent unit growth from 1996 to 1997. Led by CD-RW, it's the fastest growing segment of the market. -- The Japanese market will fuel continued growth of 3.5" MO. -- 5.25" optical and 12/14" WORM shipments were down 17 percent and 33 percent, respectively, in 1997. This trend will continue through 1998. Despite high expectations for DVD, 1997 turned out to be another record year for CD-ROM. Overall, IDC believes the optical storage market will continue to grow, but DVD will have to make some significant strides to live up to its advanced billing. Falling prices and the ability to read CD-ROMs at 20X or faster have set the stage for DVD to make an impact. To order a copy of Optical Storage Market: 1997 Year in Review and 1998 Forecast (IDC #B15111) please contact Cheryl Toffel at 508-935-4389. About IDC Headquartered in Framingham, Mass., International Data Corporation provides IT market research and consulting to more than 3,900 high-technology customers around the world. With a global network of 300 analysts in more than 40 countries, IDC is the industry's most comprehensive resource on worldwide IT markets, products, vendors, and geographies. IDC/LINK, an IDC subsidiary, researches and analyzes the home computing market, leading-edge technologies in telecommunications and new media, and the convergence of computing and consumer electronics. IDC's World Wide Web site ( idc.com ) contains additional company information and recent news releases and offers full-text searching of recent research. IDC is a division of International Data Group, the world's leading IT media, research and exposition company. NOTE: All product and company names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. SOURCE IDC (Copyright 1998)

To: John Rieman who wrote (28040)	1/13/1998 10:00:00 PM
From: BillyG	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

I suspect that many new digital settops will have cable modems. NLV pointed out in its last conference call that it is not a big deal to add a cable modem to a two way digital settop because most of the circuitry is already there. The settop has a receiver (to receive digital TV signals) and it has a transmitter (to send digital orders for pay per view etc.). If you use a DSP to handle the MOdulation and DEModulation (MODEM), for the digital TV signals, then it is not a big deal to reconfigure the DSP for the cable modem functions. Sorry I'm rambling on, John -- I know you don't need the tutorial. But if you want to use the cable modem at the same time the kids are watching TV . . . well, we'll see how they handle that!

To: John Rieman who wrote (28040)	1/13/1998 11:01:00 PM
From: DiViT	Respond to of 50808

Pick up the Pace... The Investment Column: Patent problems at Pace Andrew Yates 01/13/98 The Independent - London Page 20 (Copyright 1998 Newspaper Publishing PLC) Two profit warnings, the departure of a chief executive, and shares worth just a third of their flotation price: you would have thought things couldn't get any worse for Pace Micro Technology. But they just did. Already the most disastrous new issue of recent years, the satellite-TV decoder maker yesterday reported worse-than-expected losses and set aside pounds 10m in provisions. The shares slipped 8p to a new low of 37.5p. Malcolm Miller, the newly installed chief executive, must have expected more. But rather than proclaim the brave new dawn of digital television he first had to clear up the mess his predecessors had left. It seems the previous management decided not to set aside any cash for royalty payments on intellectual property used in digital satellite decoders. Now the owners of said patents are asking for their money, and the company has had to put away pounds 5m to cover the liability. Even though the final settlement should be a lower figure, this does not bode well. Other nasties included a pounds 4m write-off after CanalPlus, the French media group, took over one of Pace's customers in continental Europe and rendered Pace's stock worthless. There will be more to come in the second half once the group decides how many jobs and offices it has to cut to reduce costs. A final worry is Pace's balance sheet. The group claims to have over pounds 10m in the bank, but this was largely achieved by calling in debtors and not paying creditors - the pounds 581,000 interest charge for the half suggests the group is still carrying some borrowings. With all the bad news now hopefully out of the way, Pace may eventually stage a recovery when it gets the benefit of the BSkyB set-top box order next year. Long term, however, it's still possible that larger competitors will obliterate Pace altogether. Still one to avoid.

To: John Rieman who wrote (28040)	1/14/1998 10:05:00 AM
From: BillyG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

Intel + Zenith + LG = digital TV??? koreaherald.co.kr 01-15-98 Zenith Works Together with Intel for PC Reception of DTV Signals LG Electronics said yesterday that American TV producer Zenith Electronics Corp., in which LG holds a majority stake, will work together with chip giant Intel Corp. to develop demodulator cards that will allow PCs to receive DTV broadcasts. One of the earliest proponents of high-definition TV (HDTV), Zenith has developed a number of key digital technologies, including the VSB (vestigial sideband) digital transmission system adopted by the Federal Communications Commission as part of the ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) DTV broadcast standard. Any consumer product that receives an ATSC DTV signal will use Zenith's patented VSB technology. LGE has already developed a chipset for DTV which includes an integrated circuit (IC) for Zenith's VSB technology. Claimed to be the first complete, fully functional DTV chipset, the package was used in Zenith's first DTV receivers, which was presented to the Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas last week. According to LGE, Zenith will provide the chipset to Intel, while Intel will provide its Pentium II technologies to Zenith for joint development of a demodulation card to bring DTV services to millions of Intel architecture-based computers. Intel intends to develop a chipset which enables a system running on its 300-MHz Pentium II processor to receive standard-definition TV (SDTV) signals. The chipmaker will then develop an improved version for a system built on a 400-MHz Pentium II to receive HDTV services. LGE said the cooperation between Zenith and Intel is designed to help make DTV services available to a larger number of people at a low cost. In the United States, commercial over-the-air DTV services are scheduled to be introduced in autumn. In the initial period, the company said, demand for DTV-enabled PCs is expected to be greater than that for DTV sets. While trying to bring their digital TV sets to the American market ahead of their rivals, LGE and Zenith also plan to put emphasis on developing TV reception cards for PCs and set-top boxes which allows ordinary TVs to receive DTV services. In addition to licensing its VSB technology to manufacturers of digital high-definition television (HDTV) receivers, set-top boxes and broadcast equipment, Zenith plans to license its DTV technology to the PC industry. Copyright 1998 Korea Herald. All rights reserved.