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

To: stak who wrote (38336)	1/21/1999 10:30:00 AM
From: JEFF K	Respond to of 50808

From Mark's Monday memo This seems to be good news for Cube DTV News: - PROGRESS at last! At last week's meeting of the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) Executive Committee, according to many sources, a vote effectively removed the Executive Committee from consideration of the issue of allowing 720-pixel-wide active line transmissions, leaving it up to the technical committees. Voting in favor of this change (according to the reports) were ABC, Argentina, Canada, Comark, Fox, Microsoft, SMPTE, and Sony; voting against were the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association (CEMA), Panasonic, Thomson, and Zenith. Everyone else (including CBS!) abstained. If you'd like to make your two-cents known on this, now would be a very good time to join the T3/S6 group. Contact Larry Pearlstein at Hitachi, lap@dmsl.hitachi.com. Recap on the issue: ATSC A/53, Annex A, Table 3 lists as one of its formats 704 x 480, but all Rec. 601-based equipment (including D-1, D-5, Ampex DCT, Betacam SX, Digital Betacam, Digital-S, DV, DVCAM, DVCPRO, DVCCPRO50, etc.) has 720 active pixels, not 704. Allowing 720 in Table 3 will permit (among MANY other things -- see ATSC Doc. T3/S6-119) the use of MPEG transcoding for improved pictures. Unfortunately, it means a tiny change in the DTV standard. Proponents of adding 720 (which includes me) say this will not cause any significant problems with existing receivers or other equipment; opponents of opening Table 3 say it will lead to a "train wreck." CEMA and NAB were supposed to survey their members and report to the Executive Committee. NAB, according to my reports, apparently did and noted a desire to add 720 as long as it didn't prevent any receiver from displaying pictures. CEMA, according to the same reports, didn't.