Some highlights from WCES 1991 [Long]
Indra Singhal
Thought I'd share this with you all!!
Here is a report from my recent trip to Las Vegas to attend the
WCES 1991 - Winter Consumer Electronics Show!
These are just some of the highlights that I am putting together. This
in no way is complete and is only my perspective on what I saw.
KODAK: Introduced the Photo CD! A fully functional prototype
was on display. By 1992, you should be able to send in your 35mm
film to Kodak for processing and receive in return a WORM CD.
Each can hold upto 100 pictures that can then be printed, viewed
on TV. The data contains 5x (approx) the data needed by current
TV standards and about the same as the 35mm negative. A thermal
print from CD was in-distinguishable from a negative. I have a
sample of the Thermal print which I saw them generate in front
of my eyes... They expect interactive consumer editing/cropping
of pictures prior to printing...
KODAK: Through 3rd party dealers, have a realtime-view-on-TV-to-
crop-and-zoom-then-print machine capable of producing 11x14"
prints in a few minutes. Expect to see these machines at 1 hour
photo shops... Should cost ~$10 for 11x14 and have prints while
you wait. You need your strip of 4 negatives that you insert in
a slot!
PHILIPS/TANDY: Unvieled behind closed doors: a parallel standard
to Sony's DAT. They call it DCC. Digital Compact Cassette. It
will have stationary heads and will record 4 tracks on each
side. Players will be able to play current Compact Cassetts
along with DCC. They expect to blow away DAT and are looking for
industry support.
SONY: I heard the DAT-WAlkman!! It is as good as it is claimed
to be. All units will have the Serial Copy Protection scheme.
That is a heck of alot of h/w in a tiny packet... what with
revolving helical head and all! The unit can record as well as
play and is bootleg concert recorder's dream machine. I wonder
if SCP will prevent him from making duplicates of live
recordings... I should have asked!
TDK: Ran a challenge, that they plan to take on the road. A TDK
T-Shirt for getting the right answer. They have hooked up a
Nakamachi 3 head m/c and a CD player... they get you to listen
to the same music and identify the source of the music on 5
different source settings. They have adjusted for the 3 head
Deck monitor delay from the tape source. They claim the SA
records the CD most faithfully. I got my T-Shirt!! [Knowing TDK,
they may not change the source combination... answer is:
Cas,CD,CD,Cas,Cas!!]
New Patent: Better than real time video compression. [I met the
engineer on the flight back...] I forget the company name...
they demoed a IVR (Instant Video Receiver) that could receive
downloads of an entire movie in compressed form in about 15secs
and then play it back at viewer's leasure. Media etc is still
under consideration. Think about it... dial a movie! any movie!
CANON: Fuzzy logic in video camera focusing... kind of a bit old
for news value... It was my first look at fuzzy logic... I have
mixed reaction.
PIONEER/BLAUPUNKT: Both had navigation systems for the car.
Liked the Pioneer system much better... S/W for US to be
available mid 1991. Expect to pay a steep $3700 list sans s/w.
All of japan fits on 4 CDs. Very detailed street maps.
PANASONIC: A video printer that really did look better than any
thing I saw last year... with capability to zoom/crop and adjust
color/tint/hue/brightness & sharpness before printing. Each
print took 84 seconds to print. Priced "competitively with Sony"
they said!!
ChatterBox: A Dick Tracy style wrist watch that can record upto
15secs of sound!! Gizmo.
BioWatch: For $59.95 this watch can divulge a woman's most
fertile time.
Commodore: CDTV, an interactive CD player with a builtin Amiga
500 that lets you play s/w on your TV along with audio CDs. Game
s/w with sound/video on its way...
With this I can see a family owning 5 different CD players:
Laser disk, discman, a Kodak photo CD, CD rom for the PC and
ofcourse, a Commodore CDTV!!
General:
o IBM came to CES for the first time! They were showing off the PS/1.
o Too many computer companies this year as compared to last year.
Even Emerson and KLH (speaker makers) were displaying 386
machines... Gawd *&%$@.
o KENWOOD: They were stuffed shirts this year too! Admission to
their booth was by {excuse us lowlies} "invitation only". So...
I don't buy Kenwood :-) One less brand to choose from :-)
o Goldstar: Largest booth... most free floor-space!
o Samsung: Best bags...
o Thats' Cassettes: Had a Penthouse Pet giving out autographs &
free copies of the magazine !
o Playboy: Ran out of magazines by day 4.
o Penthouse: Had truck loads of magazines stacked free for the
taking !! [Does it say something about them??]
o HDTV: at Toshiba, Sony, and a couple of others. Looked very good.
Overall, it was mostly a repeat of last year... Some of the booths even had
the same furniture. [The chewing gum I noticed last year was still there
:-)] The buying/selling was as upbeat as 89... the war was forgotten. It
was a different world.
I better end now... or else...
--
iNDRA | in...@amd.com or {ames apple uunet}!amd!indra
| (Indra Singhal) (408) 749-5445; Advanced Micro Devices
| MS 167; Box 3453; 901, Thompson Pl., Sunnyvale, CA 94088
Greg Holley
> CANON: Fuzzy logic in video camera focusing... kind of a bit old
> for news value... It was my first look at fuzzy logic... I have
> mixed reaction.
Fuzzy logic in focusing? This will probably be difficult to market.
--
Greg Holley sun!sono!holley hol...@sono.uucp
"My tale is so strange that, were it written with needles on the interior
corner of an eye, yet would it prove a lesson to the circumspect."