Press Release: 7 July 1994
In the first step of a January 1994 agreement, Philips Consumer Electronics Co. and Compression Labs Inc. (CLI)(NASDAQ/NMS:CLIX) Thursday announced that they received a contract from Bell Atlantic for the first interactive Digital Entertainment Terminals.
The Terminals will be used in the first commercial market digital television and information services which will be transported over Bell Atlantic's video dialtone network in New Jersey.
Under the terms of the contract, the Philips/CLI team will deliver the interactive Terminals, also known as digital set-top decoders, that will receive, decode, and control a wide range of video entertainment services to be offered by program providers, including Futurevision.
The initial multi-million-dollar order to Philips and CLI will be for
installations in Bell Atlantic's Dover Township, New Jersey service area
beginning later this year. Bell Atlantic received approval from the
"This deployment is a major first for the telecommunications and
consumer electronics industries in bringing the Information Highway into
peoples' homes by way of the television," explained Bill Kennedy, senior
vice president, Philips Digital Videocommunications Systems (DVS). "We're
proud to work with Bell Atlantic and CLI in leading the interactive
digital TV revolution with our new products."
"This agreement takes the industry and consumer beyond trials and into
real-world deployment of digital programming technology," explained John
E. Tyson, president, chief executive officer and chairman of CLI. "It's
exciting to see the power of digital compression technology used to make
TV programming more innovative and versatile than ever."
The Philips/CLI Terminals will use the MPEG-2 (Moving Picture Experts
Group) international standard for digital video compression, as well as
the MPEG-specified Musicam audio system. They will contain
microprocessing capabilities equivalent to a powerful personal computer
and more than 5 Megabytes of random access memory. The Terminals will
be easy to hook up to the video dialtone network. An easy-to-use yet
sophisticated graphic user interface is based on Philips' Compact
Disc-interactive (CD-i) system. A wireless remote control guides viewers
through intuitive (menu/option) on-screen selection of a new world of
television choices.
Some of those choices could include ordering movies and other video
programming (health care, educational and children's shows), paying bills,
shopping, and much more -- all by pointing and clicking an on-screen
cursor at symbols and menus on the TV screen. Philips and CLI have
worked with Bell Atlantic for nearly 2 years to help define the consumer
digital set-top functionality. CLI has also worked with Bell Atlantic in
supplying MPEG decoders for a video-on-demand trial in northern Virginia.
Philips's DVS group, part of Philips Electronics N.V., is among the
world's preeminent television, video and audio technology development and
signal transmission operations. In the U.S., the group is based at
Philips Consumer Electronics Co, Knoxville, Tenn., where nearly 300
engineers work together with hundreds more at Philips Laboratories in
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.
The DVS group also includes Philips Broadband Networks Inc., a major
manufacturer of video signal distribution equipment to the cable industry
based in Manlius, N.Y.
Compression Labs Inc. is a leader in the rapidly expanding video
communications market. The Company's Compressed Digital Video (CDV)
technology digitizes and compresses full-motion video signals for
practical and economical transmission over telephone, satellite and cable
networks. With headquarters in San Jose, Calif., CLI develops and markets
products and services for three markets: group videoconferencing,
broadcast video and personal video.