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

To: Stoctrash who wrote (33649)	6/6/1998 9:08:00 AM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

SGS Thomson owns the settop box market........................ techweb.com June 08, 1998, TechWeb News -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- STM's view from the Alps By Stephan Ohr STMicroelectronics recently brought a delegation of journalists to a company seminar in Aix-Les-Baines, a resort town on a glacial lake in the foothills of the French Alps. The seminar raised a number of questions about who leads in analog, mixed-signal and communications ICs, and about how that leadership is constituted. Dataquest ranked STM (formerly SGS-Thomson Microelectronics) first among analog and mixed-signal IC suppliers in 1996, though Texas Instruments claimed the title in 1997. The view from Aix suggests that this could be more of a horserace: Mixed-signal accounts for a significant portion of TI's $8 billion business (it also makes memory, logic and microprocessors) and constitutes the bulk of STM's $4 billion business. Each company accounts for $2 billion in standard linear and custom mixed-signal products. TI might be a little stronger in communications circuits; STM, because of its power-semiconductor strengths, might have a larger share of market in automotive. Both companies are strong in hard-drive devices, though their specialties differ (TI, from its absorption of Silicon Systems Inc., leads in read channels; STM, because of its BCD process, leads in servos). I believe the contest for mixed-signal dominance hinges on digital-signal processors. TI leads the world in mixed-signal shipments if you include DSP parts (such as modem chips and hard-drive head positioners) that incorporate analog codecs. STM leads if you include MPEG-2 codecs, a market that STM practically owns. MPEG compression/decompression is a DSP operation, based on discrete cosine transforms. STM's Sti5500 Omega chip, aimed at set-tops and DVD decoders, already includes MPEG-2 and Dolby Digital decoders, and an NTSC television encoder. If STM can integrate an audio D/A into such a part, the volume-leadership picture will change.

To: Stoctrash who wrote (33649)	6/6/1998 1:28:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

Changhong(C-Cube customer) gets bigger........................... chinadaily.net Merger of TV factories sought FUZHOU -- Changhong Electronics Group is seeking the merger of two television set factories in coastal Fujian Province. Yang Jianguo -- vice-mayor of Mianyang, where Changhong is based -- disclosed that Changhong is undertaking merger negotiations with Hitachi Fujian in Fuzhou. Yang made the remark at a press conference here yesterday morning. He said the possible path of co-operation between the two companies could be Changhong's shares in the Fujian company or converting Hitachi Fujian, a specialized plant under Changhong. Changhong, formerly a manufacturer of goods for the military, is one of the largest producers of TV sets, air conditioners and other electronic products. Last year, its production was valued at 25.65 billion yuan (US$3.09 billion), accounting for 35 per cent of China's colour TV market. This year, it plans to make 9 million colour TV sets and have 40 per cent of the market. Changhong's plan is to be one of the world's top 500 companies early next century.

To: Stoctrash who wrote (33649)	6/7/1998 5:33:00 PM
From: DiViT	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

Zentith, Intel & DiviCube working together? KOMO-TV begins DTV reception tests Seattle station sends measurement van into the field By Glen Dickson KOMO-TV, the Fisher Broadcasting ABC affiliate in Seattle, has reached the next stage in its DTV evolution by testing the reception of high-power, standard-definition broadcasts. KOMO-TV's experimental station, KOMO-DTV, began intermittently transmitting a low-power test signal of random bits in January 1997. That was followed by the April 1998 launch of a DTV simulcast of KOMO-TV's analog NTSC signal in the standard-definition 480 I DTV format on digital ch. 38. Now KOMO-DTV has spent several hundred thousand dollars to build a field measurement van, which it will use to measure KOMO-DTV's signal throughout the Seattle area. The van has a 40-foot mast for receiving signals and a full complement of RF test and measurement equipment, including an $80,000 Hewlett-Packard vector analyzer. The vehicle will be kept busy through this summer and into early fall compiling measurement data on KOMO-DTV's signal, which is being transmitted at a power level of 350 kw--well below the 1 megawatt level that KOMO-DTV will use when frequency coordination issues with Canada are resolved. The station has been using a Larcan transmitter, Dielectric antenna and Divicom MV40 encoder to support the SDTV signal. "We plan to do a thorough field testing of DTV propagation," says Pat Holland, KOMO-TV vice president/director of engineering. "We have a little more aggressive terrain than the rest of the country, and we want to fully understand the artifacts of propagation in order to pick a permanent deployment site." In making its field measurements, KOMO-DTV will be working with transmitter supplier Larcan, Zenith Electronics and RF engineer Dennis Wallace, who has been conducting the RF field measurements for WHD-TV, the Model HDTV Station in Washington. "We want to make sure that the testing we do is not just a renegade effort, but that it's an effort consistent with some form of an as-yet-undeclared national standard of data," says Holland, who points out that the minimal DTV testing conducted so far has all been on the East Coast. KOMO-DTV also has a portable PC-based receiver unit supplied by Divicom that Holland has been using to view the station's DTV broadcasts. The PC, which has Intel's Unicorn DTV tuner card and a PC board that combines Intel decoding and Zenith 8-VSB demodulation technology, is connected to a standard Radio Shack panel antenna designed for indoor use. Holland has used the PC receiver to view KOMO-DTV's picture both at the station (two miles from the transmitter site) and at various sites throughout the Seattle area. While he describes the Intel tuner as being very much a prototype, he has been impressed with the pictures he's received with it: "I had it in Mount Vernon, about 40 miles north of the transmitter, and had no problem receiving the picture there." He also used the receiver at his home--20 miles north of the transmitter--and says that the DTV picture compared favorably with KOMO-TV's NTSC signal, which he receives off-air with an antenna in his attic. But he is quick to point out that, in both instances, he set up the DTV receiver outside on a back porch, not inside a house where the small UHF antenna could experience multipath problems. "We have a lot to learn about reception inside a building or a home," Holland says. After signal testing this summer, KOMO-DTV intends to be ready to begin 720 P transmissions of ABC's Wonderful World of Disney this fall. Holland hopes that Divicom will have a 720 P encoder ready in that time frame. He says that KOMO-DTV will probably use the station's existing fiber-optic pipes to transport ATSC-encoded feeds to its digital transmitter, instead of using a digital microwave studio-to-transmitter link. The station also is working with ABC to get new satellite receive systems to downlink the digital network feeds. For KOMO-DTV's non-prime time programming, Holland is looking at various upconversion equipment and will be evaluating a Snell & Wilcox unit this week. Besides identifying the initial gear required for a DTV launch, Holland has to make a lot of engineering decisions about KOMO-TV's new all-digital plant, which will be constructed over the next two years to support both KOMO-DTV and the station's ongoing NTSC service. While ABC has secured a deal with Panasonic to supply discounted 720 P master control packages for affiliates, Holland says he hasn't discussed that offer with Panasonic yet. "Our situation is more global," he says. "We're building a whole new broadcast center." Unlike a lot of other big-market stations that have component digital plants, KOMO-TV still has a composite plant and will be looking to create an entirely new digital infrastructure instead of building on existing serial 601 equipment. "Do you swing the pendulum all the way to 720 P equipment, or do you create a 480 I/60 plant and upconvert?" asks Holland. "Or if you do something in between, where does the pendulum end up?"

To: Stoctrash who wrote (33649)	6/7/1998 6:32:00 PM
From: DiViT	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

I wonder whose Encoder was in this... nb-pacifica.com TOKYO, JAPAN, 1997 MAR 7 (NB) -- By Martyn Williams. Consumers waiting for the first batch of DVD-RAM disks and players don't have long to wait. Toshiba Corporation [TOKYO:6502] was demonstrating the rerecordable version of DVD-ROM at its Tomorrow 21 exhibition and told Newsbytes it could be on the market as early as this year. The system Toshiba was demonstrating featured two types of disks. A single sided disk can hold 2.6 gigabytes of data while a double sided disk holds 5.2 gigabytes. Physically, the DVD disks are enclosed in a protective case that is identical in size, and almost in detail, to the cartridges used to hold PD disks. The case, which DVD-ROM and DVD-Video disks do not have, is needed to protect the disk surface from dirt. When recording on the disks, the problem of dirt and contamination is much greater than on prerecorded disks. To prove the system worked, and worked fast, Toshiba had a video camera connected to a PC. The computer used an internal MPEG-2 encoder to convert the video signal to computer data that was being stored onto the disk in real time. Shortly after, playback was demonstrated by reading data off the disk and running it through an MPEG-2 decoder to reproduce the video picture. Before the system can be commercialized, the companies of the DVD Consortium must agree a final format for the system. Newsbytes understands that the system exhibited by Toshiba has support from most of the members but Sony and Philips are still supporting a slightly different format. The exhibition highlighted more than just DVD-RAM however. Toshiba also demonstrated a High Definition DVD system. It offered pictures that the company said were equivalent to 70mm movie-theater pictures. The basic disk could hold 130 minutes of high-definition pictures and was capable of holding 1.6 times the data of a standard DVD-Video disk. To get extra capacity from the disk, a Toshiba engineer explained, the company used "submicro-pit formation" technology and a shorter wavelength laser. For many visitors, the exhibition was also the first time they had the chance to see the DVD-ROM and DVD-Video systems working. One application demonstrated was the playback of a DVD-Video disk via a personal computer. The video could be viewed on both a television set and a PC monitor while the drive could also be used as a DVD-ROM data disk on the PC. Demonstrating the home theater capabilities of the system, the company's standard DVD-Video player was connected to a Dolby digital decoder and an array of seven speakers.