game trailblazer

Chapter 151 The Eve of the VCD Market Prosperity

The sweet voice of the stewardess echoed in the broadcast on the plane: "...Flight KA1111 from BJ to Hong Kong is about to land at Kai Tak Airport. Passengers, please return to your seats and fasten your seat belts..."

Zhang Lexing took his eyes back from the magazine in his hand, closed the magazine and put it back in its original position, checked his seat belt, and looked out from the porthole, there was still a large cloud of whiteness outside.

It has been six days since Zhang Lexing saw the game disc of "Condor Commando" in his office. Because he wanted to attend a seminar on VCD in the company, he took a flight to Hong Kong.Ma Guanghai and Yan Shuangfei also came together, but now she has changed her name to Yan Ruofei.

When Zhang Lexing heard about this for the first time, he was surprised and asked, "Okay, why did you change your name?"

In the end, Yan Ruofei said: "Boss, when I returned to Hong Kong last time, I asked someone to read it for me. He said that my original name was not good, and if I didn't change it, there would be disaster, so I changed it to my current name. "

"I didn't expect to be so superstitious at such a young age." Zhang Lexing muttered in her heart, but anyway, whether to change her name or not is her own business, so she didn't investigate further, and naturally she didn't notice Yan Ruofei's words Sometimes a little drift eyes.

After the plane landed smoothly at Kai Tak Airport, Zhang Lexing and his group took their luggage and walked out of the terminal.This time, it was Du Anqi, the administrative secretary of Dongfang Holdings, and the 16-member elite team of Antaida Security Company who came to pick him up at the airport. The car arranged for Zhang Lexing was still the Mercedes-Benz S600.

After everyone boarded the car, the convoy headed directly to Huihan Building, No. 33 Lockhart Road, Wanchai, where Orient Holdings is located.The seminar on VCD was arranged in the meeting room of Dongfang Holdings. The participants included Duan Yongping, the person in charge of Baofeng Electronics Factory (which produces VCD cores), Ding Yaping, the technical director, and the chief technology officer from Scopa. Don Stark, Wang Xiqiang, chief technical advisor of the Hong Kong Audiovisual Technology Research Institute, and several senior experts in the electronics industry invited by Orient Holdings.At three o'clock in the afternoon, all the participants had arrived, and the meeting officially began.

The meeting was chaired by Liu Minghui, technical director of Orient Holdings. Originally, he didn’t need to appear in person, only his subordinates in charge of consumer electronics were needed. But when Zhang Lexing came, the meeting’s standard was much higher, so he had no choice but to come in person up.

Liu Minghui tapped the microphone lightly to test the sound, then dragged the microphone a little closer, and said: "First of all, I would like to thank Mr. Zhang Lexing, the chairman of the company. He took time out of his busy schedule to attend this meeting. The main The topic is the sustainable development of VCD technology. Next, I will report the current development of the VCD market.

At present, the VCD market is mainly in the mainland. Last year, the annual sales volume of VCD players was 2000 units, all of which came from AH Wanyan Company. We predict that the market capacity this year will be around 20000 units.At present, the main competitor of VCD players is video recorders. According to the survey, since 92, the inland government has led a "one-stop video recorder" project, which has greatly promoted the production of video recorders in the mainland. double the output.The price of Wanyan VCD player on the market is 4995 yuan, and the price advantage is not obvious compared with video recorders. In addition, the main program sources are purchased by Wanyan from audio-visual companies and compressed and produced by themselves. The number is very scarce. Two points have seriously affected the popularity of VCD players. "

Zhang Lexing knew how to solve these two problems, but in order to know whether his subordinates had a solution to the problem, he still pretended to be ignorant and asked, "For these two points, what solutions do you guys have?"

Don Stark from Scopa Company was the first to speak: "The decoder board provided by Scopa Company to AH Wanyan Company is CL450, which is not specially designed for VCD players, and the integration level is not high. Our At present, a new generation of VCD dedicated decoder board is being developed, code-named 'CL480', if successfully developed, the integration level will be greatly improved, and the corresponding cost will also be greatly reduced."

As soon as Don Stark finished speaking, Ding Yaping, the technical director of Baofeng Electronics Factory, went on to say: "In order to reduce the cost of the whole machine, in addition to improving the integration level, we can also expand the production scale. As long as the scale reaches a certain level, the cost will be reduced." will drop significantly.”

At this time, one of the electronic experts invited by Orient Holdings said: "I did some homework before I came. AH Wanyan Company has not been established for a long time. Its main technical strength comes from a private enterprise with AH. The large-scale production capacity is not enough. Strong, I am afraid that it will be difficult to quickly expand the scale of production in the short term.”

"Aside from AH Wanyan, are there any other companies that want to enter the VCD market?" Zhang Lexing asked.

Liu Minghui explained: "Chairman, besides Wanyan Company, there are actually many companies that have this intention, mainly Samsung and Hyundai in South Korea, Toshiba, Sony, Panasonic, JVC in RB, Philips in Europe and other well-known companies. But Since the complete patent of VCD is in our hands, they cannot completely bypass the production, at least the two parts of VCD decoder board and servo board are difficult to bypass, so we have received a lot of intentions to purchase authorization, I believe the same is true for Scopa."

"That's true," Don Stark said happily, "We Scopa is just a small company, and it's not easy to go public to raise funds, but now almost every day, companies call or come to discuss the purchase of decoder boards." Well, those people on Wall Street, we used to go to them, but no one paid attention to them, but now they are looking for us, and we are still unwilling."

"Chairman, in the past, some companies wanted to buy licenses, and we directly rejected them, but now Wanyan Company's production capacity will not increase for a while, and there are so many companies that want to buy licenses, do you think we..."

"With the patents we currently have, how long can we stop these companies?" Zhang Lexing asked the most concerned question.

Wang Xiqiang from the Hong Kong Audiovisual Technology Research Institute replied: "Chairman, according to our calculations, it can last for about one and a half to two years."

"That is to say, if our patent is not upgraded, they can find a way to bypass it for up to two years."

Wang Xiqiang nodded and said, "That's right, that's true. But we can maintain our advantages in patents by strengthening research and development."

Zhang Lexing knows that VCD technology has a lot of room for development, from 1.0 to 3.0, from single-disc to multi-disc, and even SVCD products that can improve the definition, but they can’t compare with DVD, and they will end up with a The fate of elimination.Zhang Lexing doesn't want to keep the VCD technology in his hands all the time. Instead of doing this, he might as well exchange for something better now when it is more valuable.

"VCD technology has its own defects, and there is not much room for further development. We must take a longer view. As far as I know, under the advocacy of the seven major Hollywood film companies, many companies are studying the MPEG- 2 Compression technology is applied to video storage, and we plan to launch corresponding large-capacity storage media, I think we need to have a leg in this." Zhang Lexing waved his hand, and Yan Ruofei immediately brought over a stack of materials one by one distribution.

After Yan Ruofei finished distributing the information, Zhang Lexing continued, "Everyone, this is the information I found someone to investigate, please take a look."

Liu Minghui picked up the information on his face, opened it, and looked at it. It said: "In the early 90s, the American Film Production Advisory Committee drafted a wish letter representing the seven major Hollywood film production companies, one of which was to request Can record a standard length (135 minutes) video program in a CD, and require higher image and sound quality than LD...According to the survey, affected by this, there are already two high-capacity optical disc standards under study, one One is Multimedia Disc (MMCD) and the other is Super High Density Disc (SHDD). Currently, the two formats are incompatible with each other, just like the videotape VHS and BETAMAX formats competed in the past. It remains to be seen which one will win..."

After reading the materials, Wang Xiqiang said: "Chairman, you mean you want us to support one of the formats?"

"It's not about support," Zhang Lexing said with a shake of his index finger, "It's that we want to join and become one of the standard-setters, so that we can enjoy enough benefits in the future instead of becoming someone else's benefits."

Duan Yongping couldn't help but said: "But, there are two formats, which side should we join? If we choose the wrong one, wouldn't it be..."

Zhang Lexing laughed, how could he choose the wrong one? He knew that these two formats will eventually be unified into the DVD format. Later on Blu-ray DVD, so it doesn't matter which side you choose now.

"The main supporters of MMCD are Philips and Sony. The main supporters of another SHDD are Toshiba, Time Warner, Panasonic, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric, Pioneer, Thomson and JVC. It seems that the SHDD camp is stronger. However, according to the survey, the two formats are very likely to be merged and merged into a unified format, so we can choose either side. The key is to see which side is easier for us to start with. Mr. Liu said just now that Toshiba Enterprises such as Sony, Panasonic, JVC and Philips want our VCD authorization, and we can give them, but they need their next-generation storage device technology in exchange, whether it is MMCD or SHDD. We can exchange the technology. Continue to research, for example, Scopa can research a new generation of decoder boards, and the Institute of Audio-Visual Technology can research new movements, so that we can come up with new players and be one step ahead. Of course, VCD technology Further research still needs to be continued, for example, the function of playing menu can be added, and the VCD-related technologies we have on hand can be packaged into a complete solution, I believe this will attract the interest of more enterprises.”

Everyone nodded in agreement, especially Don Stark of Scopa, dancing with joy.

Zhang Lexing took a sip of water from the cup in front of him, and continued: "I don't know what you think about the source of the program mentioned earlier?"

Liu Minghui pondered for a while and said: "Chairman, this problem is actually not something we can solve. It is best for the company that controls the source of the program to do it by itself. If you do it yourself like Wan Yan, the cost will be too high."

Zhang Lexing also knows this. In fact, the rapid popularization of VCD players is largely due to the rampant piracy, but this kind of thing must not be brought up on the stage. The topic of the source of the program can only be left as it is. up.

"Well, Mr. Liu, do you want to send someone to contact AH Wanyan to see if they are willing to build a new factory in a joint venture? We can help them expand their production capacity in terms of capital and technology. In addition, you can find someone to contact Let’s look at those audiovisual companies who are interested in producing and distributing VCDs, we can provide free technical support, and the scale doesn’t matter, as long as they are willing to do it.”

"Okay, Chairman, I will find someone to contact you." Liu Minghui replied with a nod.

"Mr. Duan, your Baofeng Electronics Factory should pay attention to contact some factories that are willing to switch to VCD players. When our overall solution comes out, they will be very good customers."

"Chairman, we will pay attention." Duan Yongping also nodded.

"Don, you Scopa must pay close attention to the research on the VCD decoder board, and strive to complete the research and development of CL480 as soon as possible. The audio-visual technology research institute should also increase the research and development efforts on the VCD core and the complete machine solution. When the time comes, some researchers can be sent to the production plant to collect the points that need to be improved in the production process and in the use of users. Well, as long as everyone works hard, I believe that the biggest piece of the cake in the VCD market in the future will definitely belong to us.”

……

After the meeting, Zhang Lexing left Duan Yongping and Ding Yaping behind, and told them: "You can also contact the audio-visual company after you go back. It doesn't matter how big or small. As long as they are willing to make VCD discs, we can provide them with related technologies for free. As long as If there are more VCD discs, VCD players will no longer have to worry about sales, and we will naturally need more people for the VCD movements we produce, do you understand?"

"That kind of small-scale audio-visual company doesn't have any programs on hand, so do you want to contact them?" Ding Yaping asked puzzled.

"You still understand what I mean. What we need is to enrich the content and quantity of VCD discs. As for who will make and produce the VCD discs, we don't know what we need to care about. Do you understand?"

Duan Yongping and Ding Yaping nodded at the same time, and replied in unison: "Oh, I see."

"Just understand, remember, we are a regular company, we must not get involved with people engaged in illegal activities, be careful." Zhang Lexing was worried, and explained again.

"Chairman, don't worry, we will definitely handle this matter well." Duan Yongping patted his chest and assured.

……

Something happened here. After a day's rest, Zhang Lexing set off for the United States again. On the one hand, it was because the development of the operating system code-named "Baiji" had entered the final stage and needed final checks; Overseas phone kept in touch with Chen Zishan. Although she knew that she was doing well, she was still worried, so she had to go.

Not long after arriving in the United States, Liu Minghui got in touch with AH Wanyan.Dongfang Holdings is willing to inject capital to help expand production capacity. Wanyan Company is very welcome. The two parties have even begun to conduct more in-depth consultations on investment details. As an excuse, they proposed that "capital injection is possible, but the relevant supporting enterprises must be selected from AH province", but according to the list of supporting enterprises provided by them to investigate one by one, the results are mostly third-rate and unqualified small factories, not because they cannot produce quality Qualified products mean that the cost of the produced products is too high, and the investment plan of Orient Holdings this time ended without a problem.Later, I heard that the local government asked Wanyan Company to expand the production line from 2 units to 6 units a year, and promised to help it solve the funding problem, but there was no more follow-up.

Fortunately, Duan Yongping came back with good news. They have found two factories that intend to switch to the production of VCD players. These two factories used to produce learning machines. As the learning machine market is gradually saturated, they plan to find new ways to make money. Duan Yongping, who recommends VCD players everywhere, learned from Duan Yongping that the VCD market has a very broad prospect, and the two parties hit it off and reached a preliminary agreement.The other thing is that Ding Yaping "accidentally" left out the information about the production of VCD discs into the hands of interested people through two friends. The data also coincidentally included an analysis report on the VCD disc market. So some interested people began to prepare related equipment according to the information, intending to make a fortune as in the market analysis report.Of course, many formal audio-visual publishing units have also received relevant information, and secretly prepared accordingly.

All of a sudden, many people focused their attention on the VCD market on the eve of the outbreak, looking forward to...

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PS: The so-called catastrophe means that the name will be harmonized^_^
(End of this chapter)