1/15/99
BILL FERSTER’S VIDEOGRAPHICS NEWSWIRE
ISSUE 99-1
ABOUT THIS NEWSWIRE
Bill Ferster’s VideoGraphics NewsWire is published weekly and summarizes the important events in the convergent worlds of multimedia, video, animation, chips, mass storage and computers.
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BUSINESS
---> DIVX Sales Better Than Expected
Circuit City, the promoter of the DIVX (http://www.divx.com) variant of DVD claims to have had a successful Christmas season by selling 87,000 DIVX players, as compared with 75,000 DVD-only players. I would have expected DIVX to die a hard death and critics claim that Circuit City unfairly promoted DIVX over DVD. If the numbers are true however, they are pretty impressive.
---> Cinebase Gets $9M of Funding
Leading Digital Media Management Systems (DMMS) software maker Cinebase (http://www.cinebase.com) received a $9M investment lead by Bear Stearns. Analysts expect market to grow from about $100M to $1B by 2001.
---> Media 100 Announces Earnings
Continuing to take it on the chin for the past few quarters in order to put more development on the NT-side of their business, leading NLE maker Media 100 (http://www.media100.com) lost $1.5M on sales of $12M. This compares to last quarter’s $8M loss on $10M and last year’s $617,000 gain on $12M in sales.
---> Strata Acquired by C-3D Digital
Leading 3D graphics software developer Strata (http://www.strata.com) has signed an agreement to sell their assets to Chequemate International (CQMT), which does business as C-3D Digital Inc. (http://www.cqmt.com). C-3D is involved in making a 3D stereographic (with the shuttered glasses) set-top box units for hotel rooms. Strange bedfellows indeed...
---> Play Lowers Electric Image Price
Following their acquisition of highly acclaimed Mac 3D software maker Electric Image, Play Inc. (http://www.play.com) lowered its price to $2,295 from $7,500 and included a number of new features and unlimited resolution rendering.
BROADCAST / POST
---> Adobe Ships After Effects v4.0
Adobe Systems (http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/aftereffects) has released a new version of its leading After Effects compositing software. The new version has tighter integration with Adobe’s comprehensive imaging line, improved control over masking and layering options.
---> StageTools Adds VRML Output to OnStage!
StageTools (http://www.stagetools.com) has added the ability to output VRML files to its OnStage! Previsualization software. VRML is a compact 3D format that will allow animations created by OnStage! to be efficiently sent over the Internet. VRML browsers are being shipped with Windows98 and freely available for most computers. VRML is used in the upcoming MPEG-4 interactive/set-top media format.
---> Radius Changes Name and Focus
Long-time manufacturer of Mac-based hardware and software Radius has changed its name to Digital Origin (http://www.digitalorigin.com) and decided to ride the DV digital video market.
---> Avid Jumps Back into the Consumer Marketplace
Avid Technology (http://www.avid.com) announced a new product aimed at the consumer editing market for the iMac. Created by start-up ESKAPE Labs and using a Zoran M-JPEG chip, the sealed unit connects to the iMac’s USB port to capture 30fps video into Avid’s Cinema editor software.
---> Broadware Announces Digital Disk Recorder
As a prelude to its upcoming NLE, Broadware (http://www.broadware.nl) will introduce a RS422 controllable Digital Disk Recorder based on Matrox DigiSuite hardware. The "BRW-500" can simultaneously record and playback D-1 quality video and 4 channels of 48 kHz audio, using standard AVI and VAW files. The DDR will ship as turn key, SW + boards, SW only.
IMAGING
---> Sandia Offers New Approach to Pattern Recognition
EE Times reported that Sandia National Laboratories (http://www.sandia.gov/media/VERI.htm) has come up with an interesting solution to the traditionally "hard" AI problem of pattern recognition. In the course of human trials, they isolated the visual template the brain uses to define portions of an object. They believe they can perform these functions in real-time.
---> MPEG-4 Dedicated Chip
The Belgian Interuniversities Microelectronics Center (http://www.imec.be) has made the first wavelet-based chip, for decoding the graphical components of MPEG-4 streams. MPEG-4 is a superset layer of MPEG-2 that melds 3D scene description with sprite-based animation and compositing capabilities.
---> MPEG-7 Spec In Progress
I had MPEG-1 and 2 pretty well sussed-out, and was grappling with an understanding of MPEG-4, when the MPEG committee announced they are beginning to spec out MPEG-7. (MPEG-3 was rolled into MPEG-2, and I have no idea what 5 and 6 do). The new spec is aimed at integrating automatic search and identification of multimedia content.
---> New All-In-One Media Chip
Equator Technologies (http://www.equator.com) unveiled yet another new media chip that they call a "software TV." The VLIW and SIMD "MAP1000" performs 2D/3D graphics rendering, MPEG-1 thru 4 decoding, video scaling and NTSC decoding. The chip is ‘C’ language programmable, rather than through tedious assembly code.
---> Condense Images, Don’t Compress Them
BitJazz (http://www.bitjazz.com) announced a new lossless technique for image compression based on Claude Shannon’s "information theory" concepts. Their "PhotoJazz" technique can compress images 2.5:1 in a completely loss-less manner.
3D TECHNOLOGY
---> Apple Licenses OpenGL, Gets Conix Drivers
Looking to attract game developers, Apple (http://www.apple.com) has licensed OpenGL 3D rendering capabilities from SGI to incorporate into the next release of OS 8 and the first release of OS X. They also licensed the well regarded Conix (http://www.conix3d.com) OpenGL driver to implement the API, as well hiring one of the key Conix employees to help with the roll-out. This is GREAT news for OpenGL.
---> Plug-In Aids in Animating Dialog
LIPSinc. (http://www.LIPSinc.com) has created a plug-in for Kinetix’ 3Dstudio animation product that makes it easier to synchronize speech with 3D animated characters. The Windows-based "Ventriloquist" automatically converts digitized sound into animation motions applied to characters, at the rate of 100 actions per second.
---> ART Ships Ray-Trace Renderer
Advanced Rendering Technology (http://www.art.co.uk) is shipping their long awaited RenderDrive RD2000 networked rendering appliance, which uses dedicated chips to render ray-traced 3D images without resorting to render farms.
---> SGI To Roll Out NT-Based Workstations
Silicon Graphics (http://www.sgi.com) announced a new line of Intel/NT-based workstations. The line starts at $3,300, half the price of their MIPS/Unix brothers. The PCs come standard with FireWire I/O and SGI’s legendary pipelined graphics engine.
---> ModaCAD Gets 3D Draping Patent
Software maker ModaCAD (http://www.modacad.com) has received a patent on their innovative texture mapping technique that allows textures to be "draped" on irregular 3D objects. They have used this successfully in creating virtual dressing rooms and plan a broader rollout into e-commerce applications.
---> VRML Becomes Web3D
In an effort to broaden their base, the VRML Consortium (http://wwww.3d.com) has changed its name to Web3D Consortium. It is headed by 3Dlabs VP Neil Trevett, and will focus on promoting "ubiquitous 3D" on the web, by making 3D standards compatible with mainstream initiatives such as XML, DHTML and MPEG-4.
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SUBSCRIPTIONS
Bill Ferster’s VideoGraphics NewsWire is published weekly and summarizes the important events in the convergent worlds of multimedia, video, animation, chips, mass storage and computers.
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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, which are gleaned from press releases, print and online magazines and the Inquisit Information Service.
