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

To: BillyG who wrote (35613)	9/1/1998 9:46:00 AM
From: J Fieb	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

DELL laptop with a LuxSonar chip? I thought LSI said they won this slot? techweb.com Best of all, the modular bay holds a combination floppy disk drive/2X DVD-ROM drive. The DVD-ROM is mated to an internal LuxSonor DVD/MPEG-2 decoder chip with 2MB of SGRAM. Playback was impressive, except for the same pixelations on diagonal lines that were noted in the Presario. The picture quality was otherwise excellent. CSCO's IP/TV; I thought they were putting most of their efforts on voice over IP to put the telcos out of biz, but I guess they have video plans too. I hope they need a lot of encoders soon. techweb.com John Chamber's Interview. He mentions video the same time he mentions data and voice.....InternetWeek: What kind of a company will Cisco be in the year 2000? techweb.com Chambers: We will be the leader in data, voice, video and all major segments of the market-the service provider, enterprise, small-to-medium-sized business, and the consumer. Anyone up to speed on MPEG2 over IP? TO get more video expertise we should see who CSCO buys. They like to get those private co.s and save them the IPO trouble.

To: BillyG who wrote (35613)	9/1/1998 6:38:00 PM
From: DiViT	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

PATENT ROYALTIES STILL A MAJOR ISSUE FOR DVD INDUSTRY 08/31/98 DVD Report (c) 1998 Phillips Business Information, Inc. With the launch of DVD -Video well underway in many parts of the world, and DVD -ROM a looming force on the horizon, replication capacity is ballooning at a healthy pace across the industry. But one all-important, unresolved issue is still hanging over the heads of current and potential DVD replicators - patent royalties. With so many companies licensing patented technology to the DVD industry, it's no wonder you need a scorecard to keep track of the players. Two groups have already announced royalty rates. The contingent of Hitachi , Time Warner, Matsushita, Mitsubishi, Toshiba and Victor announced a combined royalty rate of 7.5 cents per DVD . Philips, Sony and Pioneer are charging 5 cents for use of their DVD patents, for a combined total of 12.5 cents. But there are others who plan to join the mix, too. MPEG LA, for example, says its ready to start pursuing a 4 cents-per-video- event royalty for DVD -Videos using MPEG-2. And the likes of Thomson and Discovision are rumored to own DVD patents, although they have yet to declare any royalty rates. When all is said and done, it's expected that replicators will pay as much as 25 cents per DVD in various royalty fees - a pretty stiff surcharge, considering DVD -5 replication rates have already drifted into the $1.50 range. Even though these companies claim DVD patents, replicators may not feel obligated to pay each and every royalty they're charged. Similar to the CD business, some replicators may feel that a patent either isn't valid or is inapplicable to them. In that case, the patent owner may sue the replicator, taking the DVD patent royalty issue into a state of legal purgatory. To date, things are quiet. No one is pursuing royalty payments yet, although one replicator predicted it will begin within the next six to nine months. MPEG LA will likely be the first to come calling, according to Larry Horn, vice president of li-censing and business development. Thus far, MPEG LA has concentrated on consumer electronics hardware manufactur-ers, but now it's targeting replicators and computer manufac-turers. Replicators In No-Win Situation For now, replicators are in a no-win situation, not knowing exactly what they'll be charged. By underestimating what the royalties will eventually be, a replicator could have to cough up an unplanned lump-sum payment. For example, if a replicator assumes a 20 cents-per- disc royalty but it turns out to be 25 cents, and if the replicator has manufactured 5 million discs so far, that's an extra $250,000 to be paid. On the flip side, if a replicator assumes a 25 cents-per-disc royalty and it turns out to be only 20 cents, it means customers have been charged an extra 5 cents a disc, which could have been the difference between making a deal or not. At the very least, DVD replicators, or companies con-sidering entering the business, should start to plan accord-ingly - get in contact with announced patent owners and set aside an appropriate amount per disc. DVD Patent Company Contact Information Philips/Sony/Pioneer: Philips System Standards & Licensing, Licensing Support Tel: 31-40- 2734682/2734893; Fax: 31- 40-2732113; and email: cecoomms@am.umc. ce.philips.nl * Hitachi /Matsushita/Mitsubishi/Victor/Time Warner/Toshiba: Toshiba Corporation, DVD Business Promotion and Support, Tel: 81-3- 3457-2473; Fax: 81-3-5444-9430. * Thomson: Henry Linde, Manager Licensing, Licensing and Intellectual Property, Tel: 33-1-41865287; Fax: 33-1- 41860921; Email: lindeh@thmulti.com * MPEG LA: Larry Horn, vice president of licensing and busi-ness development. Tel: 303-331-1880; Web site: www.mpegla.com MPEG LA Royalty Rates * sell-through titles: 4 cents per video event * commercial use/rental: 40 cents per video event (not expected to be pursued until 2000 at the earliest) Source: MPEG LA Announced DVD Patent Royalty Rates Group Royalty Philips/Sony/Pioneer 5 cents Hitachi/Matsushita/ 7.5 cents Toshiba/Mitsubishi/ Time Warner/Victor TOTAL 12.5 cents Source: Company information, compiled by DVD