Engineers from JVC, Replay Networks, and TiVo
6:30 PM social hour with refreshments + Equipment Demo
7:30 PM presentation begins, followed by equipment demos
On the TiVo and ReplayTV hard-disk-based systems, you can watch a programfrom the beginning after the recording has started, accurately skip allcommercials, and customize what you receive, i.e., broadcasts of your favoriteshows, say, only channels offering "The Benny Hill Show". The TiVo willrecord up to 30 hours in low-resolution mode, or fewer hours as the usermakes quality selections approaching the full 14 megabits/second MPEG-2bit rate. ReplayTV will record up to 28 hours at their low-res defaultsetting of 2 Mbps. Replay records up to 6 Mbps.
The JVC D-VHS VCR will directly record the MPEG-2 stream from the satellite,including program information and copy protection schemes. One D-VHS tapewill hold five hours of MPEG-2/DVB at 14 Mbps. JVC says D-VHS is the firstconsumer format capable of recording/reproducing the six-channel DolbyDigital (AC-3) audio signal.
All three systems claim future HDTV compatibility.
Engineers from the three companies will discuss with us some of thedesign parameters of their three competing systems, including tradeoffsbetween picture quality and record time, MPEG, and hard-disk issues. Allthree will demo their boxes.
The chances are, at least in the near future, when we replace our homeanalog VCRs with digital devices, we'll end up with one of these systems.
SMPTEsf welcomes members and friends to attend without charge.
Silicon Graphics Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy. Mountain View, California
Building 40 -- the newSGI Presentation Center