BUSINESS
---> Power Computing Expected to go Belly-Up
Premiere Mac-clone maker Power Computing is expected to throw in the towel at its January 26th shareholder meeting. This of course, in direct response to Apple’s new anti-clone strategy.
---> Apple Expects Profitable First Quarter
Apple Computer (http://www.apple.com) said that they expect to end their earnings-decline with profits of $45M on $1.5B in revenue. The gain was attributed to cost-cutting measures and higher gross margins.
---> MetaCreations Posts a Flat Quarter
Multimedia Software developer/distributor MetaCreations (http://www.metacreations.com) posted relatively flat sales of $17M in sales as compared with $16M last year, with a substantial decline in earnings as well.
---> Learning Company’s Sales Increase 29%
Who says the games market is ALL bad. The Learning Company (http://www.learningco.com) posted a 29% increase in revenue from last year, attributed primarily to the popularity of the American Girl and Reader Rabbit packages. As the father of a 9-year old girl, I personally contributed to their quarter.
DVD / MPEG
---> Zenith Taps Microware for New Hi-Def TVs
Zenith has struck a deal with real-time operating system (RTOS) maker Microware (http://www.microware.com) include their Digital Audio/Video Interactive Decoder (DAVID) package for their high-definition television products.
---> Dolby Digital And MPEG Audio Compared
Philips Electronics (http://www.philips.com) staged a blind test at Pacific Ocean Post to determine which format produced superior audio for DVD projects. After listening to some 30 different examples, some in uncompressed Dolby Digital and some compressed by the new MPEG Multi-channel technique, participants were enable to hear any difference between the two.
---> DirecTV First to Offer HDTV Satellite Broadcasting
Hughes Electronics plans to offer HDTV telecasts over its DirecTV satellite system, initially for Pay-Per-Views and special events. Thomson jointly announced a new $6,000 61" projection HDTV set, with the satellite set-top box build right in. A less expensive (presumably under $3,000) 38" tube model is expected shortly.
---> Microsoft Wins Battle For TCI’s Set-Top Business
TCI chose Microsoft’s Windows CE operating system for the at least 5 million of a 20 million set-top box potential. This followed a bitter battle between Microsoft and Sun, who had wanted to add their scaled-down version of Java, Personal-Java to TCI’s products.
MASS STORAGE
---> StorMedia Increases Disk Storage Density
Hard-Disk platter manufacturer StorMedia (http://www.stormedia.com) claims to have doubled the amount of information they are capable of recording per square inch to 4 gigabits, with that number increasing to 10 in the next 2 years.
---> IBM Doubles Disk Storage Capacity
IBM (http://www.ibm.com) has achieved an 11.6 gigabits per square in their research labs, and expects products to be available in 2001. IBM quoted some interesting statistics about drives: the average drive capacity has risen from 145MB to 2.65GB from 1991 to 1997, with the cost per MB dropping from $5.23 to an astounding $.10.
BROADCAST / POST PRODUCTION
---> Media 100 Gets Professional
After years of claiming to target only the multimedia and corporate portions of the video production market, Media 100 (http://www.media100.com) has released a number of new features aimed at making their well-regarded editor more palatable to professional editors.
They released version 4.5 at MacWorld, which offered a number of audio enhancements aimed add offering real-time EQ, filtering, cross-fades and clipping. They also announced alliances 3 companies to provide offline logging, compressed movie file exporting, and film edge-list conforming capabilities to the Media 100 editor.
---> Sony Intro’s Smart Labels
Sony (http://www.sony.com) introduced an interesting new technology for some of its consumer VCRs that are capable of reading information encoded within a label applied to the outside of a video tape. The under $500 "SmartFile" VCRs store the contents of the tape. The labels can be read by merely placing the tape aside the VCR.
---> Adobe Enhances After Effects
Adobe Systems (http://www.adobe.com) has made a number of plug-in enhancements to their highly-acclaimed After Effects image compositor, that will make importing material to and from professional systems easier.
The new formats are Kodak’s Cineon high-resolution FIDO film format, used in special effects in motion pictures, a Motion-JPEG codec, SGI graphic formats, and a cross-platform dual fork movie plug-in. Registered users can download the plug-in at no charge from http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/aftereffects.
---> Canopus Offers DV-based NLE
Canopus (http://www.canopuscorp.com) introduced a new NT-based nonlinear editing system that can accept DV, S-video, and Composite ins and outs. The $3,499 "DV-M1" comes with a PCI plug-in card,a breakout box, and ULEAD’s Premiere lookalike editing software.
CHIPS
---> Lucent Makes Fast and Cheap DSP
Lucent Microelectronics (http://www.lucent.com/micro) has announced a new DSP aimed at the consumer industry. The "DSP1609" operates at 100 MIPS and will cost under $5 in quantity. It requires very little power and contains 24K words (3, 12-bit bytes in DSP parlance) of internal memory.
MULTIMEDIA
---> Apple To Use Sorenson Video Codec in QuickTime
Apple has chosen compression maker Sorenson Vision’s (http://www.s-vision.com) codec for inclusion into its QuickTime 3.0 multimedia and presentation software. The "Sorenson Video Codec" claims to provide much cleaner image quality the CinePak, Apple’s previous codec of choice.
3D TECHNOLOGY
---> Conix Offers OpenGL Drivers for Mac
Mac users can join the renewed interest in OpenGL by getting Conix’s (http://www.conix3d.com) new OpenGL drivers, which support version 1.1 and has drivers for 3Dlabs GLINT-based and ATI accelerator cards. Apple supports QuickTime 3D as the "official" rendering API.
---> Vertigo Adds 3D Drawing Tool To Illustrator
3D Animation veteran Vertigo (http://www.vertigo3d.com) has created a plug-in tool for Adobe’s (http://www.adobe.com) popular Illustrator package. The $39 "3D PopArt" plug-in makes it easy for 2D illustrators to add 3D to their drawings.
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CYA DISCLAIMER: The preceding NewsWire represents my best efforts to gather the facts and the offering of my opinions. Although I try to describe the world as it appears me, I make no representations as to the accuracy of the reports within.
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