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

To: DiViT who wrote (35268)	8/18/1998 1:49:00 PM
From: BillyG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

Nice Dave, that's a lot of dots to connect! I'm headed out of town for a couple of days, so I can't connect the dots now. Kenwood dots -- I heard that Kenwood will purchase its DVD player from an OEM source that already uses CUBE's ZiVA. Maybe someone can find the dots out there in cyberspace.

To: DiViT who wrote (35268)	8/18/1998 7:07:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

Digital Broadcast market slow. Broadcasters sitting on money........ Few Dip for Digital Dollars By Deborah McAdams Contrary to what many have assumed, digital television financing is available, but so far there are few takers. Transmitter manufacturers, poised at the forefront of the technology conversion by virtue of the FCC deadlines, have tailormade financing programs to offer, but broadcasters appear to have their own stash of cash. U.S. Census Bureau data bears this out. The nation's roughly 1,200 commercial broadcasters took in a total of more than $28 billion in 1996, with about $5 billion remaining after expenses. Total revenue for the industry increased between nine and 10 percent each year from 1993 to 1996. "A lot of these guys have deep pockets, so they really don't need it," said Bob Mancuso, president and chief executive officer at Acrodyne Industries, Inc., in Blue Bell, PA, Mancuso bought 25-year-old Acrodyne and took it into the high-powered transmitter market four years ago. He said his company has arrangements with a variety of leasing and finance companies, like GE Capital Leasing, for example. "You're talking about the bigger guys going first," he said, referring to the November deadline, which apply to 26 stations in the nation's largest markets that have volunteered to be the first commercial DTV broadcasters. Acrodyne has about 20 high-powered transmitters up and running at various stations, but none are strictly digital, Mancuso said, adding that the market for digital transmitters alone is estimated to be around $2 billion but manufacturers have yet to see a very big piece of that. "There's not really been a rush to digital technology," he said. "This business is still analog. It does not hurt [stations] to go replace their old analog with new analog. They can just swap out the modulator." "Mainly, for transmitter needs, they're buying retrofitable analog," Mancuso continued. "That's what's really driving this market, the new generation of analog equipment that's retrofitable to digital. It isn't a function of whether all this digital equipment is available, it's the cost. Digital encoders alone are priced from $300,000 to $400,000, he pointed out. High-powered transmitters--a market of about 2,000 units--run $250,000 to $2.5 million apiece; mid- to low-powered units represent a market of about 4,000 (costing from $5,000 to $250,000 each), he said. Mancuso also stated that the finite market for transmitters is "competitive in the sense when we entered the market, there was a lull... " Prior to the digital mandate, high-powered, analog transmitters were replaced at a rate of about 100 to 150 per year, he said. "Then DTV became a reality. The broadcaster from the middle of 1996 to '97, didn't do anything." Mancuso believes the efficiency of Acrodyne's technology will give the company an edge in the market when it finally does take off, which he anticipates within the next year. Meanwhile, broadcast equipment manufacturers across the board are sitting on their digital research and development dollars. More....................... tvbroadcast.com