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Technology Stocks : Innovacom (MPEG), [announced single chip MPEG-2 encoder] -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DiViT who wrote (5203)	3/27/1998 10:12:00 PM
From: Peter V	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6297

Gates also noted that the C-CUBE chip was available today, and at a reasonable cost ... microsoft.com MR. BIDDLE: Okay. So not only can this chip encode, it can also decode, and it can decode two simultaneous streams. That has some sort of immediate ramification for end users, that the first one we want to demo is playback with two streams at the same time. And here we go. So what we're seeing right here is that video once again, but I'm going to add "Michael Collins" from Warner Brothers. We're going to stick that in the mix. And, as I said, because we're doing two streams at the same time on the system, we can start doing per pixel transitions between the two, so you're going to see here is a set of programmable phase wipes and other transitions that are only capable if you're capable of doing two streams at the exact same time. We're not switching sources, we're actually decoding both streams simultaneously. **** A system with this level of functionality would have cost about $100,000 a year ago, probably well over that, and this is going to debut at consumer price points, but what's really interesting is that we also have a DVR drive on the system. So just to review, we took the signal, we MPEG 2 video encoded it, we MPEG 2 stereo audio encoded it, we put it down on the hard drive. Then I ran a program that turned it into DVD video format, and then we copied it down. So I'm going to pop the DVR into the system here. So you can see this disk right here, here it is. And, as I said, we went from end to end here, and let's take a look at what happens. This is a consumer DVD video player, so we take the disk, we put it into the consumer DVD video player, and here's an act of faith. So what did we just do? In four minutes, we went from nothing, analog capture, MPEG 2, onto the hard drive, turned it into DVD video and burned it on a DVDR disk, put in a DVD video player and played it back. MR. GATES: I'm certainly surprised to see that C-CUBE is getting that chip out and getting it out at very low price points. So this is one capability that's going to actually appear faster than we would have expected.

To: DiViT who wrote (5203)	3/28/1998 8:13:00 PM
From: Alex Dominguez	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6297

This might be the reason? "In the MPEG-2 encoder market IBM is the principal competitor in the broadcast communications market, while Sony is the most potent competitor in the consumer market. C-Cube expects that other companies will introduce competing encoder products in the future.* Although the timing of the production availability of such encoders is uncertain, their availability could have an adverse impact on C-Cube's encoder product revenues and margins. C-Cube may also face increased competition in the future from new entrants into its markets. In particular, as the markets for C-Cube's products develop, competition from large semiconductor companies, such as SGS-Thomson, Texas Instruments and Phillips, and from vertically integrated companies such as Sony, MEC, Toshiba and NEC, may increase significantly. If C-Cube can offer low-cost hardware solutions, then it may continue to compete with providers of software solutions such as National and AMD, and manufacturers of CPUs such as Intel and Motorola. The ability of C-Cube to compete successfully in the rapidly evolving markets for high performance video compression technology depends on factors both within and outside of its control, including success in designing and subcontracting the manufacture of new products that implement new technologies, adequate sources of raw materials, protection of Company products by effective utilization of intellectual property laws, product quality, reliability, price and the efficiency of production, the pace at which customers incorporate C-Cube's integrated circuits into their products or technologies, success of competitors' products and general economic conditions. There can be no assurance that C-Cube will be able to compete successfully in the future."