Los Angeles, CA, April 29, 1996—Digital video bitstreams produced by encoders from General Instrument and DiviCom have been found to conform with the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG-2) standard during testing at Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. The testing was part of an established program that uses CableLabs' world class digital video test facilities at its Louisville, Colorado, headquarters.

"CableLabs has been proactive in bringing MPEG-2 technology to the cable industry. We have participated in the definition, evaluation, and intellectual property rights availability for this new technology which will foster many innovative applications and services," said CableLabs senior vice president and chief Technical officer Dr. Richard Prodan.

"The MPEG-2 standard consists of a very complex set of specifications, and implementation errors are common. A number of manufacturers have been tested, and we have worked closely with some to correct and refine their encoders. As a result, we are pleased to announce that both the General Instrument and DiviCom encoders have demonstrated conformance to all our checked compliance requirements to the MPEG-2 video and system layer specifications by successfully completing our first battery of more than 200 tests."

Dr. Richard R. Green, CableLabs president and CEO, said the success by these companies was critical to the cable television industry. "The industry appreciates the effort and refinements that these companies have made during the last year in their products. This is good news for cable," Green said.

The testing currently involves verifying some 104 system transport stream elements and 73 video stream elements. Verification of bitstream syntax and semantics, program multiplexing information, buffering, timing, synchronization, as well as system and video valid parameter ranges is performed. These elements are checked to comply with the MPEG-2 Main Profile at Main Level definition.

Further enhancements are under development to augment current conformance testing capabilities. Final, detailed results of the testing will be made available to CableLabs members later this year.

CableLabs is a research and development consortium of cable television system operators representing more than 85% of the cable subscribers in the United States, 70% of the subscribers in Canada, and between five and 10% of cable subscribers in Mexico. CableLabs plans and funds research and development projects that will help cable companies take advantage of future opportunities and meet future challenges in the telecommunications industry. It also transfers relevant technologies to member companies and to the industry. In addition, CableLabs acts as a clearinghouse to provide information on current and prospective technological developments that are of interest to the cable industry.

About CableLabs: Cable Television Laboratories (www.cablelabs.com) was founded in 1988 by members of the cable television industry. A non-profit research and development consortium, CableLabs delivers innovations that enable cable operators to be the providers of choice in their markets. Cable operators from around the world are members. CableLabs maintains additional web sites at www.cablenet.org.

CableLabs® is a registered trademark of Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. Other CableLabs marks are listed at http://www.cablelabs.com/certqual/trademarks. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.