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  • Super VCD, Home Servers Highlight Hong Kong Electronics Fair
  • October 20, 1998 (HONG KONG) - Chinese-standard Super VCD devices and home servers made in Taiwan attracted crowds at Hong Kong Electronics Fair '98 held Oct. 13-16.
    Hong Kong's largest electronics products showcase also had on exhibit radio-cassette players, video CD players, televisions with huge screens, car audio products and other audio visual equipment, regular telephone machines and cellular phones, pagers, connectors, speakers and laser components.

    The exhibition was to provide opportunities to businesspeople for negotiations even more than for displaying the latest technologies from Asia. Visitors from Europe, Asia and the Middle East were negotiating prices at booths throughout the floor.

    Super VCD attracted the largest attention. A total of 14 Chinese manufacturers of video CD players, such as Jiangsu Shinco Electronics Group Co., Ltd., Shenzhen ASIC Design Corp. and Shanghai Shanglu Electronics Co., Ltd. showcased products. Sony Electronic Devices Ltd. of Hong Kong also exhibited its products. However, all optical pickup components and decoder ICs were made in Japan or the United States.

    Super VCD is a standard adopted this month by China's Ministry of Information Industry. The standard employs the MPEG2 encoder and decoder format. Its picture quality was improved by increasing the number of horizontal lines on a video CD from 250 to 350.

    A 12cm-discs can play video and voice for 40 minutes. For this reason, most of the participating manufacturers were playing Super VCD players with built-in, three-disc changers.

    A DVD player developed by Comjet Information Systems Corp. was also in the spotlight at the exhibition. The player was equipped with a 266MHz Pentium II microprocessor and a 2.5GB hard disk drive. It can replay DVDs and video CDs. Users also can use a Web browser, email and a telephone with an answering machine to check receipt of fax transmissions and trade stocks real time with the player.

    Joe Y. K. Shue, the firm's assistant vice president, said, "This is a Taiwanese version of a home server. We have already started negotiating with foreign makers, including IBM Corp. of the United States, Toshiba Corp. and Sharp Corp. of Japan, for OEM production. The product will be priced at US$850."

    Hong Kong Electronics Fair '98 was held jointly with Electronic Asia '98 and Laser Asia '98, exhibitions of electronic parts and laser products.

    A record 1,388 companies exhibited their products at one or another of the three showcases, up 21 percent from the previous show, when 1,150 companies participated. Of the participating companies, Hong Kong makers accounted for 922, up 16 percent from the previous show. Taiwan companies made up 211, up 15 percent, and Chinese manufacturers represented 175, up 58 percent.

    More details on the exhibition can be obtained at: http://hkelectronic sfair.tdc.org.hk/

    (Nikkei Electronics)


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    Updated: Mon Oct 19 18:32:55 1998 PDT