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

To: La Traguhs who wrote (8467)	2/14/1999 6:19:00 PM
From: John Biddle	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 9124

Everyone, How about a little discussion on the potential of the new TV enhancing technology that Quantum is involved in? Quantum has entered into some sort of partnership agreement (I don't know if they're exclusive, but I'm unaware of any other DD vendor doing this with these companies) with two different companies, ReplayTV and Tivo, to provide special disk drives to be used in new devices which will enhance TV usage. Quantum has also announced that they have developed a drive to connect with Sony's iLink interface. Western Digital and Sony have an agreement in this direction as well. The devices are essentially similar. They record incoming video off antenna, cable or DBS onto a hard disk and play it back. The obvious similarity to a VCR is deceptive, though, since they are not intended to replace VCRs at all (since they don't hold enough). The strongest benefits the devices provide center on watching live TV. Since the device can record and play simultaneously, you can watch one thing and record another like with a VCR; but unlike a VCR this can be two different spots in the same program. For example, say you've just settled down to watch the big game and the phone rings. You could try to answer while watching, but one or both activities are going to be substandard. You can answer the call and miss part of the game, or you can "put the game on pause", and when the call is over you pick up where you left off, missing nothing, since the game continued to be recorded to the disk drive and you can watch and record the same program in a time shifted manner. When a commercial comes on you press "skip ahead 60 seconds" however many times it takes to get back to the game, and before you know it you're caught up. Vendors have announced services which enable the device to learn the upcoming week's programming in your area, and you can not only set up to record a specific show like on a VCR, but can record all future episodes of a show, so you'll never miss another episode of your favorite South Park. Or how about the ability to record all movies with Clint Eastwood or another of your favorites? I think another area that will benefit from this is WebTV. Now, if you want to take advantage of a web reference or ad noted in a broadcast, you miss the next x minutes of the show to do so. But if you could return to the show where you left off, you'd be a lot more likely to do so. Heck, if advertisers are going to benefit from increased usage of web ads during broadcasts, they might not mind putting up with the advancing technologies which enable viewers to skip the ads. Anyway, Quantum seems to be at the forefront of this. Will it matter? Will this grow into a business worth dominating? Can QNTM dominate it? How much money can it bring in? Will it help them to improve their drive business? And a million other questions you can add and answer. So what do you think? For more info, see: replaynetworks.com tivo.com sony.com