InterVideo 8-K Filing: Interesting!

[Jerry Jones]

http://tinyurl.com/qgwlo

"Revenue from products, other than WinDVD, such as WinDVD Creator, InterVideo DVD Copy, InterVideo InstantON and Ulead products such as VideoStudio, PhotoImpact and Ulead DVD MovieFactory, represented 64% of total revenue in the second quarter of 2006, as
compared to 55% of total revenue in the second quarter of 2005."

According to President and CEO, Steve Ro. “We entered into an agreement to purchase the remainder of the outstanding shares of Ulead and, as planned, sold Ulead’s building in Taipei, Taiwan which added over $21 million cash to our balance sheet."

"All time Installations of our WinDVD playback software surpassed 175 million during the quarter, demonstrating the strength our market position."

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Dr Mordrid]

We can only hope they'll remain a net contributor next year when they're on Corel's spreadsheet

[Jerry Jones]

That bit about InterVideo selling the Ulead building in Taipei was interesting.

21 million; I understand that building had at least eight floors and -- believe it or not -- when I was contracted to work as a consultant for Ulead I got to meet one of the company founders... Lewis Liaw... in Los Angeles.

Lewis was the company president.

Lewis was very impressive... incredibly smart, sincere and honest.

At first, he considered sending me to Taiwan to meet the Uleaders there, but unfortunately, the SARS outbreak was big in the news at that time and so that never happened.

I still got to see many of the Taiwan Uleaders, including Charlie Chang, via a video conference.

Lewis left Ulead after InterVideo bought his interest in the company.

H.T. Chien, however, has posted a picture of the old Ulead building here:

http://tinyurl.com/g4nko

Now they're in a new building a short distance from the old one.

It will be quite interesting to see what happens now that Corel is the new owner.

Remember when Corel was flying high?

In the old Cowpland days, they were talking tough as if they would rival Microsoft.

Then came financial disaster and now today's Corel is rising from the ashes.

Such drama.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[htchien]

Yes the old building is now been sold. If you want more pictures on Ulead from me you can visit my Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/htchien

Some Ulead colleagues also use Flickr to share their photos, you might find them in my Flickr contacts.

There are some other pictures on the old building I did not upload to my blog and Flickr. But if you would like to see them I can upload them to Flickr.

Actually Lewis did not leave Ulead immediately after InterVideo bought Ulead. He fly back to Taiwan and became the president of Ulead HQ until last Sept. (so it's a year passed).

For Corel, we can wait and see.

Best regards,
H.T.

[Jerry Jones]

Hi H.T.,

I got an e-mail from Lewis a few months ago and he said he was going to rest and decide what to do next.

Do you know what Way-Zen Chen is doing these days?

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[htchien]

Way-Zen is now an elder in his church, sometimes he serves people by praying and Bible teaching.

These days he writes some story books for children (the book will be published next month) and he is a program speaker to share his poems and throughts at 8:30 pm every Friday night in a Christian radio station in Taipei. The program is called "Knowing the Bible". In Chinese it's "認�*�聖經".

This is the broadcasting schedule of the radio station if you can read Chinese:

http://www.goodnews.org.tw/schedule.php?change_model=01

And he also writes some poems and articles for a column of a website called See-Want (the same pronunciation as "Hope" in Chinese). The website is an Chinese Christian Ministry for Business Man.

URL address of the column articles (also in Chinese):

http://www.seewant.org/?START=TOP&TOP=article&gsno=1&area=9

Maybe you know before leaving Ulead he is not only the chairman of Ulead but also the chairman of Ulead Christian Fellowship? I was one of UCF before.

Regards,
H.T.

[Jerry Jones]

It's good to hear about Way-Zen.

Sounds like he's doing well.

That's good.

I have another question for you, H.T.

In your experience, which is the best workflow to convert HDV to standard definition MPEG for DVD?

HDV > NTSC DVD

In other words...

NTSC drop frame (29.97 fps)
MPEG files
24 bits, 1440 x 1080, 29.97 fps
Upper Field First
(MPEG-2), 16:9
Video data rate: 25000 kbps
Audio data rate: 384 kbps
MPEG audio layer 2, 48 KHz, Stereo

...to...

MPEG files
24 bits, 720 x 480, 29.97 fps
Upper Field First
(DVD-NTSC), 16:9
Video data rate: 9200 kbps
Audio data rate: 384 kbps
MPEG audio layer 2, 48 KHz, Stereo

...is what I've tried so far.

It looks very good -- except -- when there is horizontal motion I see "combing" artifacts.

Is there a way to reduce those combing artifacts?

Or is that just a normal consequence of interlaced video?

Or would you suggest a modified conversion procedure?



Thanks,

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[htchien]

Dear Jones,

Actually I do not know the reason why you get the combing artifacts, but I will tell some Ulead people to check it.

Sorry I cannot help now.

Regards,
H.T.

[Jerry Jones]

Thanks, H.T.

I suspect this may be a normal problem of HDV (MPEG compression) video:

http://tinyurl.com/eqnzu

Motion, especially fast-moving and detailed motion as in sports footage, presents quite a challenge for the real-time MPEG encoders in standard HDV cameras. It’s a challenge HDV can often meet, but not always. This is the downside of HDV’s impressive MPEG compression efficiency.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net