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

To: DiViT who wrote (37300)	11/17/1998 5:21:00 PM
From: JEFF K	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

I believe this is a new one on Cube's investor relations board. They announced a Dec 1 presenting at Credit Suisse First Boston's Technology Conference. Hopefully this means an additional house that will be following Cube.

To: DiViT who wrote (37300)	11/17/1998 5:32:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

With or without copy protection, movies are going to be broadcast in digital.................................. detnews.com Tuesday, November 17, 1998 Movie industry must allow digital broadcast, TV group head says Bloomberg WASHINGTON -- The motion picture industry will be forced for economic reasons to provide movies for high-definition digital television even if copyright protections the industry wants aren't in place, the head of a TV manufacturers' trade group said. The digital TV market is going to be "huge" and once the technology takes off, movie studios will realize it's too lucrative to pass up, Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association, told the Bloomberg Forum. Movie studios won't currently release movies for digital transmission because there's no system to prevent pirates from making professional quality copies, the Motion Picture Association of America has said. That could increase the number of bootleg copies and hurt industry profits. The market for movies on digital TV is "going to be bigger than" the market for movies in theaters today, Shapiro said. "We said that about the VCR 15 years ago and the motion picture industry laughed in our face. Sure enough, it's true today." TV set makers are worried that a lack of high-definition programming could slow consumers' urge to buy the new digital TV sets, which hit stores earlier this month. There's also an ongoing dispute with cable companies about whether they'll carry the new digital signals on already crowded cable systems. Cable companies, however, also will make the switch to digital because "they don't want to lose their best customers" to competitors such as direct-broadcast satellite TV providers, which already transmit digital signals, Shapiro said. Transition to Digital The broadcast industry is spending millions to make the transition to digital. The new TV sets cost $6,000 to $10,000, and set manufacturers such as Thomson SA and Sharp Electronics Corp. are relying on the crystal-clear, wide-screen high-resolution pictures to lure customers into buying the sets. Products such as the new digital sets, coupled with a booming economy, will translate into a "terrific holiday season" for electronics manufacturers, Shapiro said. "People will be going into stores just to see HDTV." However, the transition from analog to digital TV is "a huge change for this country and it's going to take some time," Shapiro said. He estimates that only 30 percent of U.S. households will have access to digital TV by the year 2006 --either over the air or through cable converter boxes. Congress has said broadcasters must hand back their analog licenses in the year 2006, unless 85 percent of U.S. households don't have access to digital TV by then. In that case, the 2006 deadline will be extended until the 85 percent target is reached. That probably won't happen until at least the year 2010, Shapiro said. "There will be some bumps in the road before we get to the point where everything will work perfectly."