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To: Maya who wrote (28076)	1/14/1998 3:21:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

Digital settops in Europe will number over 13M units by 2002............. hoise.com Digital TV will be present in 11% of European homes by the year 2002, according to a report by UK market researchers Datamonitor. The report, Enabled set-top box markets in Europe, estimates that there will be 13.4 mln digital set-top boxes in Europe by 2002 with the strongest market penetration of digital TV in Spain, France and the UK. Datamonitor said the lack of digital set-top boxes in some countries is due to the power of satellite broadcasters, such as British Sky Broadcasting in the UK. 'Digital television is interactive television, and soon our perception of what is TV will change,' said Datamonitor analyst Graham Neale. Details from Datamonitor, tel: (44-171) 316 0001.

To: Maya who wrote (28076)	1/14/1998 4:00:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

HDTV and settop boxes.............................................................. ijumpstart.com Consumer Electronics Makers Stress Big-Picture HDTV Efforts; Key Vendors Will Ship 60-inch Plus Sets First, then Set-top Boxes <Picture><Picture><Picture> LAS VEGAS-Chip suppliers developing HDTV components for TVs should focus on the big-screen form factor rather than the set-top box in the category's early development. Key consumer electronics companies plan to sell big-screen products first rather than set-tops that down-convert HDTV broadcast signals. They're following the same credo adopted by PC makers that included hardware-based MPEG-2 decoders in desktops with DVD-ROM drives - give consumers the ultimate experience at any cost rather than risk leaving a negative impression with a product debut that could turn off potential customers for years to come. The majority of CE manufacturers who spoke with Multimedia Week at CES last week said in HDTV's nascent stage they will only offer products capable of displaying video in 1080i. But vendors also are working to bring set-top boxes to market that differ from the down-conversion variety because they are designed to move HDTV broadcasts into a monitor that can display a variety of formats. Commonly called "up-converters", these set-tops can feed 1080i signals into high-end monitors. At least three vendors, Zenith Electronics Corp. [ZE], Sharp Electronics Corp. and Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc., have up-converters on their development road maps. Pioneer doesn't plan to ship an HDTV set capable of displaying 1080i without a set-top box until 1999. Thomson Consumer Electronics, Philips Consumer Electronics Inc. and Sony Electronics Inc. [SNY] committed to offering large-screen, rear-projection HDTV sets in late '98, followed by set-top boxes that can display down-converted Digital TV signals. Leveraging DTV to sell other products, Thomson will incorporate a DSS receiver in its first DTV offering, a 61-inch rear projection model. Jim Meyer, Thomson executive vice president and COO, expects that product to sell for $7,000. Thomson is co-developing the product with Hitachi Ltd., which will sell the same product under the Hitachi name. Meyer expects to sell between 20,000 and 100,000 units in the first year the product is available He based that estimate on history, stating that 100,00 consumers purchased TV sets in 1997 priced at over $,000. Meyer also pointed out that 5,000 color TVs sold in the first year the product was available. Thomson also plans to ship a down-converter set-top box in the first quarter of 1999 that includes a DSS receiver. Panasonic executives indicated they might come out with a set-top box at the same time as a large-screen HDTV set. If the company's prototypes at the show were any indication of what's to come, expect a big set-top push from Panasonic. At CES the company showed a model featuring a DVB demodulator and MPEG-2 chip (both sourced from Panasonic's semiconductor affiliate) as well as a 1394 interface with Philips Semiconductors. Sai Naimpally, vice president of operations for Panasonic AVC American Laboratories Inc., said the company is not sure if it will include 1394 silicon in the final version of the set-top box. Look for Panasonic to sell at least one of its in-house silicon chips to OEM customers. Sharp Electronics Corp. also showed a lot of interest in the set-top market with a variety of models. Focusing on large-screen HDTV, John Briesch, president of Sony's audio video consumer products group, said the company's first product will most likely be a flat-panel model available "with the first DTV broadcast." The Sony model will be sold under the Trinitron Wega name. It includes a picture-in-picture feature that allows a viewer to watch two different channels in two different formats, so they can display one in interlaced and the other in progressive. This feature could be used to display Web pages in their native format on one channel and video programming on a second channel. Mitsubishi Exits Direct-View Market Mitsubishi Consumer Electronics America Inc., which announced plans to exit from the direct-view TV market in March, is solely focusing on high-end products this year and will make HDTV a major focus. The company plans to ship a 73-inch HDTV rear projection system by the fourth quarter. The Mitsubishi set will include a chipset jointly developed by Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and Lucent Technologies [LU]. David Kline, JVC Americas Corp.'s general manager of strategic product planning, said the chipset was selling for $1,600 in limited quantities, but the manufacturers expect it to come down near $500 by the time TV makers order volume levels. Mitsubishi, Sharp and Zenith also plan to sell DTV-ready products, which are capable of displaying 1080i when connected to a set-top box that controls the scan rate. Zenith will bring a variety of HDTV products to market, starting this fall with a set-top box for $5,995 that can feed a monitor capable of displaying 1080i and a 64-inch rear-projection set, which will sell for more than $10,000. On the PC front, Zenith and Intel Corp. [INTC] are co-developing VSB demodulator cards with Intel Corp. [INTC]. (see MMW, Jan. 7 ; Dec. 10, 1997 for related stories.)