BILL FERSTER’S VIDEOGRAPHICS NEWSWIRE
ISSUE 98-24
12/15/98ABOUT THIS NEWSWIRE
Bill Ferster’s VideoGraphics NewsWire is published bi-weekly and summarizes the important events in the convergent worlds of multimedia, video, animation, chips, mass storage and computers.
Please feel free to forward this NewsWire to someone who might appreciate an item, or heaven forbid, might want to subscribe to it. Please refrain, however, from continually mailing it to others on a regular basis. You can visit my website for more information, as well as past issues of this NewsWire, at http::/www.stagetools.com/bill.
BUSINESS
--> Pinnacle to Acquire Truevision
Leading DVE and codec maker Pinnacle Systems (http://www.pinnaclesys.com) has agreed to acquire pioneer graphics card maker Truevision (http://www.truvision.com) in a stock transaction worth $14M. Truevision had been losing market share for some time, but had an interesting memory-centric architecture (called HUB) that Pinnacle may find useful. The move is good for Pinnacle, as it further moves them into the PC space they've been leaning for some time, away from the standalone black-box world.
--> Pinnacle / Truevision Hot Flash Correction
In the most recent hot flash, I had incorrectly said that Pinnacle had intended to consolidate Truevision’s offices together. Ajay Chopra said they would only consolidate the Bay Area offices, leaving Carl and his team intact in Indianapolis. To be fair to Pinnacle, they have managed their remote empire quite well, with offices around the globe.
---> Accom Buys Scitex Video Unit
Scitex announced it has sold their Digital Video Group to Accom at the bargain price of $10M, plus warrants convertible into 10% of Accom’s shares. Accom has paid Scitex $8M in cash and will pay the balance over 18 months. This is old home week for Junaid Sheik, Accom's president, who had founded Abekas, one of the lead companies purchased by Scitex to create the failed video unit. The failure is blamed primarily on Scitex's inability to come out with timely upgrades to their Sphere nonlinear editor line, and the Sisiphus-ian effort of competing with Avid.
---> Adobe Beats Estimates and Posts Record Quarter
Adobe Systems handily beat their 4th quarter estimates by earning a record $50M on sales of $247M. This compares with last year's $47M on sales of $227M. Application revenues from products such as Illustrator and Acrobat were up; offsetting some Asian flu induced weakness in the sales of printer drivers.
---> DVD Sales Strong
A strong confirmation of DVD's continued consumer acceptance, sales for DVD players increased 478% from last year's first week of December number, 41,000 up from 7,000 last year. This makes a total of 1.2M players in consumers’ hands since DVD's initial launch. The European market is expected to grow from 125K units this year to 1M units by the new millenium. (http://www.screendigest.com)
---> OnStage! in the News
Debra Kaufman wrote about OnStage! in the most recent Computer Graphics World Magazine (CGW) issue, saying: "By year-end, StageTools.com will release OnStage!, a $1000 PC-based previs tool that allows directors to move a virtual camera through a set in real time, without rendering. "Essentially it's a nonlinear editor before you've shot anything. It's the same premise from the producer's point of view as an editor's is in' postproduction: You can try more ideas at low cost in terms of money, time, and effort, pick the best one, and only shoot the ones you think you're going to use,' says principal Bill Fester." Why do people always misspell my name?
---> 3Dfx Buys STB
The makers of the acclaimed 3D Voodoo gaming chip 3Dfx Interactive (http://www.3dfx.com) said it would acquire 3D graphics card maker STB systems in a stock transaction worth some $141M. 3Dfx is following in the footsteps of rival 3D chipmakers 3Dlabs, who recently acquired Oxygen, and E&S who just bought AccelGraphics.
The move is much trickier for the 3Dfx/STB union, since getting into the card business will definitely alienate their biggest customer, Diamond Multimedia, and make it tough for STB, who has a successful nVidia-based product, and who had just bought higher-end card maker Symmetrix last year, a big proponent of 3Dlabs chips. Card makers such as STB implement "reference" designs provided by the chip makers, so owning a card company makes sense from that point of view, although the razor-thin margins of the OEM board business will be a new challenge for 3Dfx.
RUMOR & INUENDO
---> Philips Looks to Buy Scientific Atlanta, GI, & Tek VNA
Cash-rich Philips Electronics is rumored to be scouting around the video world for some fresh video companies to buy. They reportedly want to acquire cable equipment magnates Scientific Atlanta and General Instrument, as well as the Video and Networking Division from Tektronix. Tek has supposedly rebuffed initial offers for their VNA division, but it's unclear whether that's just posturing.
CHIPS
---> FireWire IP Core Available
Innovative Semiconductors (http://www.isi96.com) is making available a synthesizable IP core that will allow chip makers to incorporate IEEE 1394 audio video interface (FireWire) capabilities into their ASICS. The $200K "FlexFire SL770" provides the 1394 interface for high-performance audio, video, and data applications that require MPEG-2 format isochronous data transfer according to the IEC 61883 specification.
---> Scanner-On-A-Chip
National Semiconductor (http://www.national.com/pf/LM/LM9830.html) is fueling the fire toward cheaper scanners by integrating the analog front end, motor control, buffering, and parallel port interface on a single chip. The "LM9830" runs at 6MP/sec at up to 12-bits per gun color resolution and will cost just $10 in quantity.
BROADCAST / POST-PRODUCTION
---> Forrester Predicts HDTV Will Fail
Market research giant Forrester Research (http://www.forrester.com/tv) predicts that HDTV will fail in the consumer market because of the high costs of the equipment, and instead, expect to see a broader consumer acceptance for the lower resolution digital formats. My own opinion is that it will take longer than anyone expects, but HDTV will be broadly accepted.
---> ICE Makes Stand-Alone Effects Editor
ICE (http://www.iced.com), makers of the popular BlueICE render board accelerator card to systems such as Photoshop and Avid is shipping its first stand-alone application. The $5,995 "ICEblast package includes the BlueICE render card coupled with a program to create effects quickly on footage imported via QuickTime and OMFI file formats.
---> Premiere Goes Real Time
One of the constant complaints by users of Adobe's (http://www.adobe.com) successful Premiere NLE software is its inability to render effects in real time, even when hardware capable of actually performing those effects was on-board. Adobe has solved the problem in v5.1 RT when used with Pinnacle's (http://www.pinnaclesys.com) ReelTime and Matrox's (http://www.matrox.com DigiSuite cards.
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SUBSCRIPTIONS
Bill Ferster’s VideoGraphics NewsWire is published bi-weekly and summarizes the important events in the convergent worlds of multimedia, video, animation, chips, mass storage and computers.
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