Last week, telecommunications provider <A HREF="http://www.sbc.com">SBC Communications</A> and <A HREF="http://www.directv.com">DirecTV</A> announced a marketing and distribution agreement that will allow SBC to make digital satellite television service available to its 18 million Southwestern Bell, Nevada Bell, and Pacific Bell residential customers. Specific details of the SBC/DirecTV service will be announced later.

As <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?465">reported last week</A>, more than 1.1 million DVD-Video players were shipped through the first half of 1999. Additional information released by the <A HREF="http://www.dvdvideogroup.com">DVD Video Group</A> puts these numbers in perspective: DVD-Video experienced 300% growth in the second quarter of 1999, when more than 730,000 hardware units were shipped (compared to 170,000 in the second quarter of 1998). Further, the Group says that shipments for the first six months of 1999 constitute an increase of 881,000 units over the same period in 1998, also representing more than 300% growth. (Over 1 million units shipped in the first half of 1999; in the first six months of 1998, slightly more than 260,000 units shipped.)

Last week, the <A HREF="http://www.cemacity.org">Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association</A> (CEMA) reported that sales of DVD players have reached 1 million units so far this year. CEMA also announced its revised projections for total DVD-player unit sales in 1999, raising the previous prediction of 1.8 million to 3 million.

Last week, the DVD Forum announced that its Steering Committee has formally approved the physical format of the DVD-RAM discs for 4.7 gigabytes (GB) as version 2.0. The Format Book for version 2.0 (Physical Specifications) will be published in the third quarter of this year. The DVD Froum says that the 4.7GB DVD-RAM format will be compatible with the existing 2.6GB (v.1.0) DVD-RAM format, as well as with other DVD formats established by the DVD Forum. The new 4.7GB format is expected to impact both PC and audio/video applications.