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

To: BillyG who wrote (34931)	8/4/1998 7:42:00 PM
From: Peter V	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 50808

As our good friend Alex would say, "this is a buying opportunity!" Yikes.

To: BillyG who wrote (34931)	8/4/1998 7:46:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

Look TV..................... look.ca In selecting a set-top box, Look TV has chosen an off the shelf MPEG2 / ATSC standard compliant box manufactured by Thomson Consumer Electronics. The MPEG2 / ATSC standard is gaining wider acceptance for delivering digital MPEG2 images to the home and is used by many of Look TV's competitors. "The set-top box has a smart card, S-Video output, standard audio output as well as the ability to decode Dolby AC3 transmissions. It will be great for those who have home theater systems," explained Eppinghoven. "Pacific Bell has chosen this same technology for their roll-outs in Los Angeles. It's interesting that many companies are now thinking along the same lines technically and Look TV has made many of the same decisions as Pacific Bell has in this area. We've chosen Nagra as our conditional access system as they have a great track record in security and to us that means a lot." To receive Look TV, different sizes and style of antenna's are required depending upon distance from the transmission tower. For customers close to the tower, smaller dome or rectangular shaped enclosed antenna are used. As one gets further away, larger antennas are used to collect the signal. Look TV's Ontario operation is completely housed in one plant. Its fully integrated housing the company's administrative offices, business operations, customer service call centre, technical infrastructure, and head end. From a technical point of view its head end is typical of most operations of this type. The plant operated in Milton, Ontario, collects the station feed and repackages them for distribution to its subscribers. It receives its incoming feeds from fiber link, off-air antennas and four satellite antennas located in a dish farm just outside its main entrance. The incoming signals are routed through the plant in a manner that allows Look TV to perform simultaneous program substitution as required. Prior to transmission Look TV has to package the subscriber information and set-top box data into the signal. Finally the signal is encrypted to a MPEG2 / DVB signal and sent off to their transmission towers via fibre optic cable or traditional microwave links. "We're using DiviCom MPEG encoders to encode our signals. And because we employ a fiber optic cable directly from our head end to our transmission sites, the system only has two or three link points between the head-end and set-top box. This make for a good delivery system and subscribers at home will receive an image that is equal to ours here at Master Control," said Eppinghoven. Look TV will begin lighting up their towers and begin experimental transmission in May. "Testing of our network begins in May with we'll target areas of good reception and start marketing in June." he said. "Look TV hopes to move into Quebec and begin transmitting in the Montreal area by year's end." For the Quebec system, Look TV might set up a similar operation. Another option would be to transport some signal via fibre from Milton to the Quebec head-end and add only the local stations prior to transmitting the signals.