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

To: John Rieman who wrote (35219)	8/16/1998 3:59:00 PM
From: Bob Strickland	Respond to of 50808

LSI says CVD is good but too late... Electronic Buyers' News, June 22, 1998 n1114 p10(1) C-Cube to supply CVD. (Chinese VideoCD) (Company Business and Marketing) Mark Hachman. Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1998 CMP Publications, Inc. Silicon Valley -- With the help of C-Cube Microsystems Inc., Chinese OEMs have created the successor to the VideoCD (VCD) player. The Chinese VideoCD (CVD) seemingly has emerged as the favored blend of cost and MPEG-2 encoding. However, C-Cube's competitors paint a more negative picture, claiming that a worldwide move to DVD will render the new CVD obsolete in a year's time. C-Cube co-designed the new specification, which will apparently replace another candidate to succeed the VCD, the Super VCD. To date, C-Cube is also the only publicly announced CVD supplier. The new CVD standard, which uses the same discs and loaders as the older VCD technology, transmits MPEG-2 data at a peak rate of 2.5 Mbits/s. Possible resolutions for NTSC and PAL displays comprise combinations of 480 or 570 horizontal pixels and 352 or 480 vertical pixels. Each disc is expected to store about 50 minutes of audio and video data. Chinese OEMs ChangHong, Idall, Malata, SAST, and Xiamen Solid will design players based on the CVD standard. "About a year ago, Chinese OEMs had the idea of looking at higher-quality video as a means of going beyond VCDs," said David Andaleon, director of strategic content development at C-Cube, Milpitas, Calif. The new players will incorporate C-Cube's CVDx chip, which will sell for approximately $18 to $20 and will ship in a 168-pin PQFP. The drives themselves are expected to cost roughly $150, about midway between the $100 cost of a VCD player and the $250 to $350 cost of a DVD player when it's first released, according to Andaleon. The CVD "is a very good idea in concept," acknowledged Alain Bismuth, director of DVD consumer products at LSI Logic Corp., Milpitas. "The point is that it's one year too late," with software and players not expected in volume before the first half of 1999-when DVD will have an entrenched foothold, he said. Furthermore, a Chinese-specific standard eliminates the possibility of export products, and that's frowned upon by the Chinese government, according to Bismuth.

To: John Rieman who wrote (35219)	8/17/1998 9:12:00 AM
From: .com	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

C-Cube Named Industry's Leading Provider of MPEG Digital Video Silicon for 1997 by Dataquest Monday August 17, 9:02 am Eastern Time Company Press Release MILPITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 17, 1998--C-Cube Microsystems (NASDAQ:CUBE - news) announced today that Dataquest has named C-Cube the world's leading provider of MPEG digital video silicon for 1997. C-Cube's first mover advantage in the market for digital video has enabled the company take the lead position in Dataquest's annual ranking of MPEG decompression silicon solutions for the second consecutive year. In 1997 C-Cube controlled more than 40 percent of the worldwide revenue from sales of all types of MPEG digital video decoder chips, more than twice the share of its nearest competitor. To determine the leading vendor, Dataquest evaluated worldwide sales of both MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 decompression chips. ''C-Cube's semiconductor business maintained a strong market lead as a result of focused execution and its ability to respond quickly to changing market demands,'' said Alex Balkanski, president and CEO of C-Cube Microsystems. ''In addition to capitalizing on critical applications in both the communications and consumer segments, we continued to invest in the strategic programs that we expect will drive the success of the corporation long term. We are excited about the opportunities that lie before us as the penetration of digital video expands to the broad consumer market.'' C-Cube led the creation of the MPEG standard and has continued to play an active role in driving open standards for a variety of digital video applications worldwide. C-Cube was the first company to deliver an MPEG decoding chip for digital set-top boxes, a digital video decoding chip for consumer electronics, an MPEG encoding processor for digital broadcast and a frame accurate MPEG editing (FAME(tm)) codec for nonlinear editing. The company's highly programmable processor architectures will allow C-Cube to continue penetrating new market opportunities for digital video communications and consumer applications. About Gartner Group's Dataquest GartnerGroup's Dataquest is the recognized leader in providing the high-technology and financial communities with market intelligence for the semiconductor, computer systems and peripherals, communications, document management, software, and services sectors of the global information technology industry. Additional information about the company is available on the Internet at gartner.com. About C-Cube Microsystems C-Cube Microsystems Inc. is the industry-leader in the development and delivery of highly integrated digital video silicon solutions that address the consumer electronics, communications and convergence markets. C-Cube is headquartered in Milpitas, California with offices in North America, Europe and Asia. Its stock is traded on the Nasdaq under the symbol CUBE. C-Cube can be reached at 408/490-8000 or on the World Wide Web at c-cube.com. Contact: C-Cube Microsystems Mary Giani (Corporate Public Relations), 408/490-8628 mgiani@c-cube.com Nick Kormeluk (Investor Relations), 408/490-8052 nkormeluk@c-cube.com

To: John Rieman who wrote (35219)	8/17/1998 10:10:00 AM
From: BillyG	Respond to of 50808

Serious article on DVD-ROM. See the sales forecast tables....... newmedia.com <<While it may not have lived up to its initial hype, the introduction of DVD has been a success. To date, about 400,000 DVD video players have been sold worldwide, and CEMA (the Consumer Electronics Manufacturing Association) predicts that 1 million will be sold in 1998. It's time to invest in DVD content. While DVD-V movies and players are taking hold, DVD-ROM is where the action is. DVD expands the multimedia publisher's canvas to as much as 18GB and can hold more than four hours of video content. In fact, DVD will revolutionize a key element of the communication process by turning a PC into a significant platform for reading and interacting with all types of digital media. Easy access to gigs of storage should launch an extension of the desktop publishing revolution that encompasses video, animation, 3D images, and sound, in addition to text and graphics. Over time, DVD drives (of various forms) will also replace CD drives in PCs. The big question is when? While experts disagree on the precise date, they do agree that it will be soon. The vendors are naturally the most bullish in their predictions. Philips says 25 million DVD-ROM drives will be on the market worldwide by 2000. Toshiba predicts that there will be 120 million DVD-ROM drives in the market by the end of 2000. >> <<SNIP>> <<For a more objective view, let's turn to the market researchers. The Yankee Group predicts 19 million DVD-PCs by 2001. Forrester believes that there will be a U.S. base of 53 million DVD-equipped PCs by 2000. Dataquest says that there will be 33 million DVD players shipped by 2000. And IDC thinks 70 million DVD-ROM drives will be sold in 2000 and 118 million in 2001. While these numbers are all over the map, they do confirm one key fact: DVD is poised to overtake CD-ROM and become the distribution medium for software and multimedia content within the next three years. If anything, Forrester's prediction that 53 million PCs will be equipped with DVD-ROM drives by 2000 is low. In 1998, about 90 million PCs will be sold worldwide. Virtually all of these will have CD-ROM drives in them. By mid 1999, the switch from CD-ROMs to DVD-ROMs will be in full swing, and starting in 2000, every PC that goes out the door should have a DVD-ROM drive inside. If we keep selling PCs at rates similar to those of today, we will have closer to 150 million DVD PCs by 2001. More importantly, we are getting closer to the time when multimedia publishers can begin expanding their content horizons to reflect this new opportunity. >>