Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Ampex Corporation (AEXCA) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DrD who wrote (6153)	3/10/1999 9:12:00 PM
From: Ed Perry	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17679

Your well done research proves a point. As we are all aware, Ampex is neither a PR company nor an end user company but primarily an engineering and equipment concern. Translated, this means we have to do own research. The company excels in its area of applied research and has enjoyed close in sales as a supply chain provider of technology and equipment. Then it stops there. Although it can be frustrating to an investing public, these very quiet relationships between top companies is a fairly common way of doing business. I can think of a number of strategic benefits for doing business quietly - being able to sell the same advanced equipment solutions to direct competitors is one. This brings me to another point. As I have been ranting and raving on about Convergence themes, I have touched upon forces in the businesses of: telephony and communications, Net Portals, entertainment content and equipment, broadcasting media companies, cable and wireless, computers, peripherals and networking, narrowcasting and streaming, set top box design and engineering, capital funding but never have these discussions, press clippings and linked articles addressed the obvious requirement of the massive on-demand storage which these ambitions will require. Instead, storage is always discussed in other focused topics in terms of larger, faster platters, fibre channel access, optical devices, an emerging SANS market of general computing and so on. Never once have these Convergence articles referred to the storage requirement and configuration needed to support VOD and high interactivity data streaming. In sum there is a lot of talk around the digital video storage issue but none that deals directly with it. Is this lack of discussion about storage and back end delivery among these giant contenders and partnerships an oversight? Does it point out a weak link in the proposal that translates into many years off for effective delivery of promised services? Thinking wishfully, I don't think so. In fact the absence of the specific discussion about this topic may mean only one thing. I dare not mention it here for fear that the Specialist may take the stock down another 1/2 point. What's your conclusions? Ed Perry

To: DrD who wrote (6153)	3/10/1999 10:32:00 PM
From: Andrew T	Respond to of 17679

For further information, please contact Paul Drew Ampex Great Britain Ltd Chineham Business Park Basingstoke RG24 8WA UK Tel: +44 (0)1256 814410 Fax: +44 (0)1256 814474 Email: paul@ampexgb.co.uk WWW: ampex.com Company Profile Ampex is the world¹s leading provider of high performance data capture and storage systems for aerospace, mass storage, government and professional television markets. With more than 2,000 units installed, the company¹s DCRsi™ digital cartridge recorders set the standard for rugged platform use on board surface ships, submarines, fighter and passenger aircraft, helicopters, military vehicles and at their supporting ground-based facilities. Data rates up to 240 Mbits/s are supported. In addition, Ampex¹s newest family of cartridge data storage products, the 120 Mbits/s and 160 Mbits/s DIS™ range (based on the 19mm DD-2 helical scan format pioneered by Ampex) provides both traditional DCRsi-compatible instrumentation connectivity and the computer industry¹s standard Ultra-SCSI interface. Mass Storage Libraries up to 5.8 TeraBytes are available.

To: DrD who wrote (6153)	3/22/1999 11:15:00 PM
From: DrD	Respond to of 17679

To Ampex Investors: Here is another example of the burgeoning requirements for additional storage capacity, and increased bandwidth. It includes multimedia e-mail,and video conferencing, which has not begun to take-off as yet. Again this plays into Ampex's strengths in compression and storage capacity prowess. Something to think about. Check out this link: data.com ....Casting Call Preparing for multimedia wouldn't be so hard if big files and the occasional streamed audio or video signal between two users were the only things to worry about. But audio and video transmissions generally imply multicast and broadcast data streams. Multicasting is the distribution of a signal to a selected group of stations; this group is generally selected via a multicast address that identifies the participants. Broadcasting is the distribution of a signal to everyone in a particular community. And in both cases, it's not just a matter of a single transmitter sending to a group of recipients. What is often overlooked is that all stations can be transmitters, and they can all be transmitting at the same time (and probably will be). So a seven-person videoconference requires one six-way outgoing multicast for each participant, as well as six incoming video streams. How much bandwidth would that require? With a resolution of 600 x 480 and 256 colors, and at a rate of 20 fps (frames per second), the raw load is 46 Mbit/s per video stream. This can be compressed at 10:1 by the codec to 4.6 Mbit/s. But multiply that by seven streams and the bandwidth requirement is 30 Mbit/s, full duplex, constant load. For the duration of the videoconference, that bandwidth will not be available to other users.... DrD