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To: DiViT who wrote (39701)	4/7/1999 5:16:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

NTL launches. They needed 10K to 20K boxes built in Q1............ multi-international.com NTL, Flextech Push Into Interactive Arena By CHRIS FORRESTER April 5, 1999 London -- British MSO NTL Inc. launched a nationwide interactive-services platform last week, getting a head start on competitors Telewest Communications plc and Cable & Wireless Communications plc. NTL's service, "iTV," bowed last Wednesday with a lineup of 42 services. Jeremy Thorp, group managing director of NTL Digital Services, said NTL hopes to sign up 100,000 subscribers by the end of the year. The iTV service is transmitted to subscribers over telephone wires. NTL, which is 5 percent-owned by Microsoft Corp., will charge subscribers $24 per month for iTV. The fee includes online charges, as well as a set-top box and wireless keyboard. The service features content such as news, travel information, weather, online shopping from British retailer Tesco Stores, content from the British Broadcasting Corp., phone listings from Thomson Directories and theater and event ticketing from Ticketmaster plc. Flextech plc, the U.K. multichannel programmer part-owned by Liberty Media International, will also be a major content supplier to iTV. And the interactive arena is one in which Flextech itself sees considerable growth. Flextech chief executive Adam Singer said this year is the beginning of a new era in TV thanks to digital-satellite and digital-terrestrial television in the United Kingdom. "The Internet is an opportunity for Flextech to be Flextech all over again," he said, describing the Web as an essential and logical extension to its business. The company established Flextech Interactive last year, with associated Web sites for all its channels. In January, it launched "SceneOne," a Web site that is expected to spawn an accompanying pay TV channel this year. Flextech invested more than $15 million in interactive services last year -- a figure that Singer called "cautious." This year, the company will more than double that amount. Meanwhile, Thorp said iTV expects to sign up a considerable portion of the 1.1 million homes that are connected to NTL's network. The service will also be transmitted on digital-terrestrial services. He added that NTL is talking to other broadband-service providers, and he appeared optimistic about the progress of the talks. "We want to be a national player in this business," Thorp said, noting that the company hopes to provide iTV over NTL's hybrid fiber-coaxial network.

To: DiViT who wrote (39701)	4/7/1999 6:51:00 PM
From: DiViT	Respond to of 50808

Sigma Designs' REALmagic Dragon DVD Reference Design Provides OEMs with a Single-Chip, Low-Cost DVD Playback Solution for Home Entertainment PCs 04/07/99 Business Wire (Copyright (c) 1999, Business Wire) MILPITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 7, 1999-- Decoder Featured in PC Demonstrations at WinHEC 99 Sigma Designs, Inc. (Nasdaq:SIGM), a leader in digital video solutions for personal computers, announced the availability of its Dragon DVD reference design today. The new low-cost reference design is based on Sigma's REALmagic EM8220 decoder IC. The EM8220 is a single-chip solution for playing DVD, Super VCD, and VCD 1.0/2.0 video on a PC as well as audio CDs. With Dragon DVD, PC OEMs have a completely integrated solution that fully exploits the video quality supported by international DVD standards. Dragon DVD will be demonstrated at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference ( WinHEC ) 99, April 7-9, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, California in Sigma Designs' Booth No. 1014. With Dragon DVD, Sigma now offers two DVD playback solutions to the market. The award-winning EM8300-based Hollywood Plus card provides a rich feature set, including scaling, that has become the industry standard in the PC DVD upgrade market. Dragon DVD is targeted at OEMs desiring to provide a lower price point solution. Dragon DVD decoding produces full-screen images that are always clear, clean, and crisp. With full-screen NTSC/PAL TV output, users can play high-quality video on any standard TV set. "For a low-cost DVD playback solution for customers who want full-screen TV display for living room PC applications, Dragon DVD is a perfect product," explained William K. Wong, Sigma's vice president of marketing. "As the sub-$500 consumer PC market continues to grow, the demand for inexpensive, consumer-oriented DVD playback will increase." Turns PCs into a Full-Featured Video Player Dragon DVD plays DVD and MPEG titles with full-screen resolution. It also supports DVD-video playback of encrypted movie titles. To enhance the video experience, the Dragon DVD card has the same user interface as Hollywood Plus--Sigma Designs' DVD-Station software, a full-featured application that incorporates all of the DVD navigation and playback control features found in stand-alone consumer DVD players, including remote playback. DVD-Station has simple, VCR-like control buttons for choosing a video title or track; starting playback; pausing, and stopping. Users can seek forward and backward with variable speed visual search, slow motion, next and previous chapter track, search and title selection. DVD-Station also integrates DVD navigation features such as on-screen interactive menus and sub-picture controls and color/brightness/contrast controls for both VGA and TV output. DVD control includes support for wide-screen, letterbox and pan & scan viewing aspect ratios, along with the selection of multiple camera angles. Users can select from up to eight language sound tracks and 32 subtitle settings. Further enhancing DVD-Station is REALmagic's Remote Control support, which enables the user to sit on the sofa while navigating the REALmagic Player, or DVD Station. Dragon DVD has an S/PDIF connector for AC-3 5.1 channel audio streams. MPEG audio decode and PCM audio playback at 48Khz, 96Khz and 16, 20 and 24 bits are also supported. When combined with an external AC-3 decoder and speakers, users can enjoy a full home theater experience from their PC. For TV-output, both composite and S/Video TV output are available for PAL/NTSC TV formats. The Dragon DVD design includes a unique frame rate conversion feature to play any PAL/NTSC title to any NTSC or PAL TV; it also supports karaoke applications for home theater entertainment. DVD One-Stop Shopping Lung Hwa Electronics, Formosa Industrial Computing, Inc., Yuan Yuan, and Labway Corporation--leading providers of PC graphics, audio, and digital video-related cards to worldwide OEMs -- have announced that they will begin producing cards using the REALmagic EM8220 DVD decoder IC for some of their new decoder cards, as well as continuing production of the EM8300 DVD decoder for those customers requiring a full feature set. "Sigma Designs has been instrumental to our MPEG-2 product road map," commented Peter Pai, Chairman of Lung Hwa. "The availability of Sigma's silicon for two DVD decoding solutions will enable Lung Hwa to provide one-stop shopping for OEMs desiring a lower-cost as well as a full-featured DVD/MPEG-2 playback solution." "As a highly integrated, flexible, and cost-effective solution that is ideal for the PC upgrade market, we believe the EM8220 will help make DVD playback on PCs available and affordable," stated Austin Sun, President, Labway Corporation. "Sigma's decoder silicon enables video display quality superior to that found in a DVD player for a fraction of the cost," said Mr. Sharming Lin, Chairman and CEO of Formosa Industrial Computing. "The rapid adoption of DVD playback on the PC, with output to the TV, will enrich the life style of all consumers," said Michael Liu, Vice President of Yuan Yuan Enterprise Co., Ltd. "With REALmagic's Remote Control support, Sigma Designs has taken the DVD home theater experience to a new level." Compatibility, System Requirements Dragon DVD is a compact 4.7" x 3.6" card that ships with full driver support for Microsoft(R) Windows(R) 95/98 and NT 4.0 and is compatible with all CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, and DVD-RAM drives. The REALmagic Dragon DVD reference design requires a PC with an Intel Pentium 133 MHz or higher CPU, 16 MB RAM, a PCI 2.1-compliant expansion slot, and Microsoft Windows 95/98 or NT 4.0. Other requirements include a video graphics controller with 2 MB video RAM. Dragon DVD requires only 2 MB SDRAM. Sigma's single-chip EM8220 decoder has a new companion device, the EM9038 analog multiplexor. Samples of the EM8220 and EM9038 are available, and both chips are in mass production now. The bill of materials for the EM8220-based Dragon DVD card in quantities of 10,000 is under $35.00/unit (U.S.). About Sigma Designs Sigma Designs entered the multimedia market in 1993 with products based on the MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) standard for compressing and decompressing digital audio and video signals. Today, Sigma is a driving force in advancement of the MPEG technology used in most multimedia PCs on the market today. Sigma Designs' products, marketed under the REALmagic trade name, include affordable MPEG decoding hardware used in PCs, notebook computers, and networked video applications. Sigma products are sold to PC OEMs and card makers worldwide. For additional information, visit Sigma's web site at sigmadesigns.com. Note to Editors: REALmagic is a trademark and Sigma Designs is a registered trademark of Sigma Designs. Other products and companies referred to herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Editors and Analysts: For further information, photographs and interviews, please contact Andy Marken, marken@cerf.net or 408-986-0100. Contact: CONTACT: Sigma Designs, Inc. Carol Kaplan, 408/957-9891 carol_kaplan@sdesigns.com or Marken Communications Andy Marken, 408/986-0100 marken@cerf.net 06:31 EDT APRIL 7,

To: DiViT who wrote (39701)	4/7/1999 6:58:00 PM
From: DiViT	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

LSI Targets DVD Kit At China's Consumers (04/07/99, 3:23 p.m. ET) By Staff, Semiconductor Business News LSI Logic introduced Tuesday a combination DVD, Super Video Compact Disk (SVCD) player reference kit targeted specifically for the Chinese markeplace. The kit enables companies to manufacture high-performance consumer products that match the high-resolution pictures and high-fidelity CD audio quality of international DVD brand leaders. The reference kit offers a comprehensive system-level solution and enables the fast-turn production of low-cost players that support DVD, SVCD, Video CD (1.x and 2.0), digital audio CD, and karaoke. It lets manufacturers build a single-player product that lets consumers choose the digital entertainment media they want, while ensuring compatibility with every video or CD title on the market. "In China, consumers have fully embraced the video age and have made digital media a primary source of video entertainment," said Christian Joly, director of the DVD and Imaging Business Unit of the LSI Logic Consumer Products Division in Milpitas, Calif. "Our reference kit enables Chinese video player manufacturers to further stimulate this growing market with a multipurpose product that supports broad standards compatibility. Because it is a complete system-level solution, it also enables manufacturers, even those with limited player design and production experience, to bring a product to market within a short period of time, even within a two-month production cycle." The DVD/SVCD/VCD Reference Kit, featuring LSI Logic's L64021 decoder chip, consists of a multicomponent single-board design. All the hardware comes fully loaded with preprogrammed software, including all navigation, debug, test, and verification components. The reference kit also provides modular solutions. Players can use a wide range of memory, feature, and interface options to meet price/performance criteria. Because of this flexibility, said LSI's Joly, manufacturers can quickly develop players at very low price points for Chinese markets and also produce differentiated systems by easily modifying the selection of features, altering the box design or changing the user interface.