Video CD output booming in China

Who is on the cutting edge of consumer electronics today? It's not the Japanese, the Americans or the Europeans. It's the mainland Chinese, and they are taking the video compact disc (VCD) market by storm.

Using the most up-to-date digital video decoding chips available today, the bulk of which are made by C-Cube Microsystems, Chinese manufacturers are turning out and selling VCD Players faster than anyone in the world.

Cheaper than laser disc players, more reliable than video cassette recorders and capable of playing audio CDs as well, VCD players have in just nine months became the fifth most desired consumer product behind washing machines, according to one survey in China.

'The market led us here,' Alex Daly, vice-president of marketing for C-Cube, said in Beijing.

'We think the Chinese can benefit the most from this technology. Digital levels the playing field. It allows manufacturers without traditional analog research and development to enter the market and make a very high quality product.' Mr Daly said that well over 50 per cent of the 2.5 million VCD players manufactured with C-Cube chips between last summer and the end of March 1996 were sold in China.

Founded in 1988, C-Cube marketed the world's first MPEG (Moving Pictures Experts Group) standard video decoder chips in 1991, bringing digital video capability to consumer electronic players.

In October 1993, C-Cube came out with the first highly integrated MPEG video encoders, making the delivery of digital video on low bandwidth media practical for the first time.