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To: BillyG who wrote (35687)	9/3/1998 2:05:00 PM
From: DiViT	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

Global Marketplace 09/30/98 World Broadcast News Copyright 1998 by PRIMEDIA Intertec, a PRIMEDIA Company. All rights reserved. Avid Technology Inc. (UK) and The CNN News Group (USA) announced that CNN/U.S., CNNfn, CNN International and Headline News will upgrade more than 1300 existing newsroom workstations throughout its news gathering operation to the AvidNews Newsroom Computer System (NRCS). The upgrade will begin with the installation of AvidNews NRCS at Headline News and then move on to include the majority of the CNN News Groups' international networks and bureaus. Avid also announced that ARD Aktuell (Germany), the organization that produces news and current affairs programming for Germany's first public TV channel, ARD1, has also chosen the NRCS for its main editorial office in Hamburg. In all, 160 existing Avid NetStation newsroom computer seats will be upgraded to AvidNews NRCS. The roll out phase will start in October, and the first news programs created on NRCS will go on-air in November. This will include Germany's TV news program, Tagesschau. A further 80 systems will be upgraded by next April to coincide with ARD's move to a new building. [snip] The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) selected DiviCom Inc. (USA) MPEG-2 compression and multiplexing equipment for distribution of its TV and radio program services from Sydney to ABC stations across Australia. This digital distribution system will replace the aging analog B-MAC TV service in stages, commencing in August with Western Australia. The Optus Aurora system, on the B-3 satellite, will be the platform for the new ABC distribution system. Once fully installed, the population of Australia, with the exception of Sydney, will receive part of its ABC programs via the digital distribution system and almost 500 National Transmission Authority UHF and VHF transmitter sites. Many remote area homesteads will also receive the digital service direct via Aurora. [snip]

To: BillyG who wrote (35687)	9/3/1998 4:39:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

Hitachi has a nice MPEG-2 codec(a single chip that encodes and decodes)................................ eet.com Posted: 3:00 p.m., EDT, 9/3/98 Hitachi demos DVD-RAM video recorder By Yoshika Hara TOKYO - DVD-RAM video recorders will hit the consumer market next year, according to Hitachi Ltd., which demonstrated prototype models in Tokyo this week. But rather than wait for the future-generation 15-Gbyte disk DVD-RAM, Hitachi based its prototype video-disk camcorder and video-disk deck on the forthcoming 4.7-Gbyte DVD-RAM format, which should be finalized early next year. The palm-sized disk camcorder houses an 8-cm recordable disk. As the 8-cm DVD-RAM format is not yet standardized, the prototype used "the phase-change disk with the same recording density as the upcoming 4.7-byte capacity DVD-RAM disk in 12-cm diameter," said a Hitachi engineer. While the 12-cm disk will have a two-hour MPEG-2 recording time, the 8-cm disk in the prototype camcorder has about one-hour recording time, which is comparable to current tape-based digital video camera (DVC) camcorders. "We developed a one-chip MPEG-2 encoder early this year, which enables these prototypes. Next year, we anticipate that we can lower the encoder's price to the range usable for consumer products," said Takuya Imaide, chief engineer of Hitachi's multimedia systems R&D division. Hitachi intends to use the encoder chip, which has both encoding and decoding functions, for its consumer products before offering it on a merchant market. The encoder will be fabricated on a 0.18-micron process to lower the power consumption to 500 mW or possibly even 400 mW when it is employed in consumer products, Imaide said. "Disk format will surely be the mainstream of digital cameras to provide easy image retrieval," said Imaide. Thus the camcorder to hit the market will feature an image-retrieval system that enables a user to find certain footage or still images even if they are intermingled on one disk. Hitachi has already developed the technology with its MPEG-1 camera, which it has been promoting since last February. The MPEG-1-format camera itself is evolving into compact forms by integrating circuitry and employing CompactFlash cards in place of the built-in hard-disk drives, which caused bulkiness and limited the capacity to 260 Mbytes. By 2001, Hitachi plans to introduce a cigarette packet-sized MPEG-1 digital still camera by further integration of most chips into one chip. "In terms of technology, we are ready," said Imaide of the MPEG2 digital video-disk camcorder. "We are waiting for standardization of 8-cm DVD-RAM format." The camcorder will have such key components as a 650-nm laser with about 10 mW output, an 8-cm DVD-RAM disk driver, about 680,000-pixel CCD image sensor and the MPEG-2 one-chip encoder. It will have the same level picture quality as that of DVC camcorders, with about a one-hour recording time, and if a lower transfer rate is employed the recording time can be extended. Named "home media station," the DVD-RAM disk-video deck prototype uses double-sided DVD-RAM disk with a 4.7-Gbyte capacity per side. The double-sided disk will provide four-hour recording time. The DVD-RAM video deck will hit the market next year with a list price of about $1,070.