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

To: peter shi who wrote (36588)	10/8/1998 5:23:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

DVD-ROM for Macs. E4 uses C-Cube.................................. macworld.zdnet.com The First Picture Show If you're dreaming of DVD-based movies on your Mac, be warned: a DVD-ROM drive alone will not give you a theater-like experience. If it's Hollywood on your desktop you're after, you'll need some extra hardware. With the proper software and built-in decoding hardware, your Macintosh can theoretically play movies directly from a DVD-ROM drive. But as a practical matter, DVD-Video (made up of a stream of MPEG-2 encoded video and an accompanying stream of digital audio) is just too fat for any desktop computer to handle without help. So the only way to play movies on your Mac is with an add-on card equipped to turn the flood of data into a special-effects-enhanced thriller. You should also be aware that DVD movies may not be as attractive on your Mac's screen as on your television. Visual flaws, called artifacts, can occur when a film is converted to MPEG-2 format for use on DVD. Those artifacts are virtually invisible on a typical television, but they don't go unnoticed on a higher-resolution computer monitor. For DVD Diehards DVD took its sweet time coming to the PC, and progress on the Macintosh side is lethargic at best. The $499 DVD-Video Kit for G3 PowerBooks is the only currently shipping product from Apple that includes both a DVD-ROM drive and a PC Card for decoding MPEG-2 video. On the desktop side, custom-built Power Mac G3's are available with both DVD-ROM drives and MPEG-2 decoding added to the systems' Personality Card. Apple says it has no plans to offer that DVD package as an upgrade kit or sell the card separately. If you've already got a desktop Mac, E4 is your only choice for consumer-oriented DVD-ROM upgrades. When we reviewed the company's $429 CoolDVD first-generation package in the September 1998 issue, we found it a bit rough. Since then, the company has made several improvements. The current incarnation of CoolDVD puts all components onto a single PCI card (instead of two), features a SCSI connection instead of ATAPI, and includes a better-shielded cable to improve picture quality. The latest version of CoolDVD also works in some older Macs--all you need for DVD-Video is a 120MHz PowerPC 603e processor or better, an open PCI slot, and the willingness to replace your existing CD-ROM drive. All versions of CoolDVD decode Dolby Digital audio for the latest surround-sound experience--Apple's products don't do this. If you've already got a DVD-ROM drive and are looking to catch a flick or two, you'll have to look to E4 again--the company sells an MPEG-2 decoder PCI card separately for $279.

To: peter shi who wrote (36588)	10/9/1998 12:55:00 AM
From: Rarebird	Respond to of 50808

<< Would you recommend to get in Cube before earnings? >> Peter, I wouldn't recommend to my worst enemy to buy any stock in this market before earnings! The risk is too great and I see a bottom at around Dow 6450 by the end of the Month. With all this being said, I think the Nasdaq will rally sharpely tomorrow. Why? The short sellers will cover and take their profits ahead of the weekend. There was a lot of short covering on C-Cube in the last hour today. I see it hitting new lows again by the end of the Month. I'm not sure what tomorrow will bring for C-Cube. I can say this, however, I rarely day trade in a Bear Market. Doing so is asking for trouble. I'd wait till the end of the month before I'd buy anything except a gold stock. I think you may very well be able to make a point on C-Cube tomorrow. But I'd be very careful about holding this stock after earnings are reported.