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To: DiViT who wrote (28256)	1/19/1998 9:54:00 PM
From: Stoctrash	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

What ever happend to that STB patent from KOZ? Also, Where is/are MPEG Associates these days??? ....did ESS or Rocker pull the plug? ---------------------------------------------------- Revolutionary Digital Audio and Video Patent Granted to StarGuide Business Wire - January 19, 1998 16:16 % RENO, Nev.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 19, 1998--Reno, Nevada-based StarGuide Digital Networks, has been granted United States Patent No. 5,694,334. The ground breaking "Donahue patent," named for its inventor Paul Donahue, encompasses 37 different claims which describe revolutionary methods for electronically distributing digital multimedia (audio and video programs) to personal computers over telephone wires, cable systems, the Internet, and satellite systems. This patent has an enormously valuable impact on the distribution of high quality digital audio and digital video programs to the 50 million (and growing) "wired PC households" in the United States. Industry experts estimate the size of this market will be in the tens of billions of dollars annually. Currently, people receive analog audio programs through local AM or FM radio and cable stations. Television and cable broadcasts reach 93 million U.S. households through analog TV sets. Although television programs can be prerecorded on analog VCRs, viewers cannot easily retrieve or separate segments of these programs for convenient viewing. These programs include local sports, news and weather segments, financial information, or highlights of a favorite sporting event. The Donahue patent allows viewers to easily pinpoint a specific program portion through this innovative digital technology. The primary inventor of the Donahue patent, StarGuide co-founder Paul Donahue said he "plans to change the quality of broadcasts and the way people view them." The invention claimed in the Donahue patent enables broadcasters, cable companies, record companies, movie production companies, educational institutes, and businesses to cost-effectively distribute high-quality digital audio and video programs to personal computers worldwide. The Donahue invention is currently used in Musicam Express, a service partnership with CBS, Westwood One, and StarGuide. Customers of this service include 1700 of the top rated radio stations throughout the United States. Sony, ABC, CBS, NBC, and Bloomberg Financial currently distribute their programs and music to affiliate radio stations using the high speed Musicam Express network. Prior to using the Donahue invention, high quality digital audio was primarily available on CD's. Radio networks relied on the individual manufacturing and mailing of thousands of CD's and tapes sent out daily to their affiliated radio stations. StarGuide Digital Networks is a privately held company based in Reno, Nevada. Co-founder Paul Donahue is a former executive with Gannett Co. Inc. Donahue's founding partner and CEO of StarGuide is Jeff Dankworth, attorney and renown sports agent. Other inventors include Larry Fish and Ian Lerner, also co-founders of StarGuide Digital Networks. CONTACT: Network Investor Communication Bob Deller or Justin Guidi, 888/372-1777 or 702/852-9100 email: info@networkinvestor.com or For information about licensing contact: StarGuide Bob Ryan, 702/686-5050

To: DiViT who wrote (28256)	1/20/1998 10:01:00 AM
From: BillyG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

MPEG-4 seminar............. drogo.cselt.stet.it Seminar on MPEG-4 San Jose Convention Center San Jose (CA), USA, 31st January 1998 During its 41st meeting in Fribourg, Switzerland, mpeg took a major step towards finalizing the first stage of the new mpeg-4 Multimedia Standard, by promoting the 'Audio', 'Video', 'Systems', 'DMIF' and 'Reference Software' parts of the Standard to Committee Draft (CD). This means that the mpeg-4 standard under development has reached a very stable status, and that 'National Standardization Bodies' will now be asked to comment and vote on it. The subsequent stages towards reaching the status of International Standard in February '99 are Final CD (July '98) and Draft International Standard (December '98). The MPEG-4 standard as it is currently defined in the 'CDs' makes it possible to integrate natural and synthetic audio, 'classic' rectangular video and moving video 'objects' with an arbitrary shape, animated faces and animated 2D meshes with several kinds of textures. Scalability is built into all the tools. The most bandwidth-hungry element, moving video, is currently optimized for operation at bitrates from as low as 5 kbit/s to as high as 5 Mbit/s. Interlaced as well as progressive content are supported. Audio covers the range from the extremely low bitrates (mainly for speech and synthetic audio) to transparent quality, multichannel audio. An exceptional speech quality was demonstrated at a mere 2 kbit/s. The Systems layer allows complex 'scenes' to be created, from the classical rectangular video with sound to virtual environments. The synchronised, real-time play-out of the different objects is taken care of by the MPEG-4 Systems layer, which also supports user interaction with the individual objects. A number of profiles have been defined for the Audio, Visual and Systems parts. These profiles define tool subsets that cater for a large class of applications. MPEG is making available freely usable software, donated by companies participating in MPEG, for all relevant parts of the standards (Audio, Visual, Systems, DMIF), to any party wishing to use it for the development of MPEG-4 compliant products. To promote the widest knowledge of this emerging multimedia standard, a Seminar on MPEG-4 will be held just before the next MPEG meeting, in San Jose (CA), more precisely on Saturday, 31st January 1998. The Seminar will be held at the San Jose Convention Center. At the Seminar, well known experts, very active in MPEG, will provide technology information and updates on this basic multimedia technology. The Seminar is for free (no registration fee) but you are kindly asked to send a message to Andy Tescher at andy.tescher@lmco.com announcing your intention to participate. Program of Seminar on MPEG-4 09:00 - 09:10 Opening of the Seminar Fernando Pereira (PT) 9:10 - 9:30 Multimedia and MPEG Leonardo Chiariglione (IT) 9:30 - 9.50 MPEG-4: Context and Objectives Rob Koenen (NL) 9:50 - 10:30 MPEG-4 Systems: Overview and Architecture Olivier Avaro (FR) 10:30 - 11:00 Break 11:00 - 11:30 MPEG-4 Systems: Composition and User Interaction Julien Signes (FR) 11:30 - 12:00 MPEG-4 Systems: Elementary Stream Management and Synchronization Carsten Herpel (DE) 12:00 - 12:30 DMIF: Framework Vahe Balabanian (CA) 12:30 - 14:00 Lunch Break 14:00 - 14:15 Synthetic Content in MPEG-4 Peter Doenges (US) 14:15 - 14:30 Natural Audio in MPEG-4 Peter Schreiner (US) 14:30 - 15:00 High Quality Audio Tools Marina Bosi (US) 15:00 - 15:30 Low Bitrate Audio Tools Bernd Edler (DE) 15:30 - 16:00 SNHC Audio Tools Eric Scheirer (US) 16:00 - 16:30 Break 16:30 - 16:45 Natural Video in MPEG-4 Thomas Sikora (DE) 16:45 - 17:30 MPEG-4 Natural Video Tools Touradj Ebrahimi (CH) 17:30 - 18:00 SNHC Visual Tools Ganesh Rajan (US)