Video Game Empire

The research and development of optical storage technology can be traced back to the early 1960s. But the first really practical CD player was the Philips DVD player in 1978. However, Philips did not take advantage of its first-mover advantage at that time, even if it developed a set of technical standards for the system.

So Japan's Pioneer company quickly started to follow up after seeing the opportunity. In 1981, it launched its own DVD player standard and launched a fierce technical competition with Philips.

Later, Philips learned from the experience and lessons of CD-ROM, and in 1982, it teamed up with Sony to jointly launch the Red Book (r) standard for -a CD-ROM. Different from the optical disc using the traditional analog signal system, the -a optical disc introduced digital processing technology for the first time and became the world's first digital optical disc.

The -a standard had two main applications throughout the 1980s, the first of which was as a music storage medium. So less than three months after the launch of the -a Red Book, Sony launched the world's first machine, the p-101.

It's just that the price of the machine was expensive when it first came out, and it can only target the high-end market. But there have been p-vinyl records that have been out for decades in this field. Compared with vinyl records, the machine is not only not attractive enough in price, but also has no obvious improvement in sound quality.

So the sales after the machine came out were not satisfactory, but Sony quickly figured out a way to deal with it, that is to launch a simplified version of the portable machine. So in November 1984, Sony launched the world's first portable computer-50.

The thickness of -50 is only about 4 boxes, and it has been loved by young people who are pursuing fashion soon after its release. And Sony also specially named this small portable machine san, forming a high and low match with aan, completely controlling the entire portable music market. Until two decades later, after the advent of p3 and. Only ended Sony's monopoly in this field.

In addition to being a music record, another major application of -a is as a data storage medium for personal computers. Philips and Sony have long targeted the emerging computer industry. Compared with traditional floppy disks, CD-ROMs have the advantages of larger storage capacity, smaller reading speed, and faster retrieval rate.

But as early as the advent of the -a Red Book standard, the Oriental Research Institute also began to follow up the formulation of the technical standards for computer optical discs. And Aikang, a subsidiary of the Oriental Group, has firmly controlled the technical standards of personal computers. So Philips and Sony wanted to make optical discs popular in personal computers. It is necessary to obtain the support of the Eastern Group.

Therefore, the Oriental Research Institute quickly reached a compromise with the two companies, Philips and Sony, obtained the technical authorization of all key patents in the field, and became one of the standard setters of the next-yellow book.

And Li Xuan's plan is not only to get a share in the field of computer discs, but the deeper purpose behind it is to prepare for the subsequent commercial development. The first generation of technical standards formulated by the Oriental Research Institute is actually just adding a video decoding system on the basis of the machine.

In another time and space, it was not so much invented by the Chinese as it was assembled by the Chinese. So after it came out in the early 1990s. It is the foreign companies that have mastered the core components such as movements and decoding chips, such as Scooby, Philips, and Sony, who have really reaped huge profits from this industry. Chinese manufacturers only got a mouthful of broth, and this broth quickly became devoid of any nutrition due to vicious price competition.

There is a saying on the Internet in another time and space that An-Hui Wanyan Electronics Co., Ltd., which was first developed, failed to apply for a technology patent immediately, thus losing control of the entire industry.

This view does not capture the essence of the problem. Wanyan Company has only innovated some peripheral technologies at most. And even if they apply for a patent. Other companies also have ways to circumvent it.

The two core parts of the DVD player are the movement and the decoding chip. The data stored on the disc is read by the movement. Then it is restored to a video signal through the decoding chip, and finally transmitted to the TV for playback!

The most sophisticated part of the movement is undoubtedly the laser head in the optical disc drive that is responsible for reading the data. Philips is the first manufacturer to invent the optical disc player, and it has a very strong accumulation in optical head technology. Until the later, Blu-ray era, Philips remained one of the best movement manufacturers.

In order to promote CD-ROM drives on personal computers before, Oriental Group reached an agreement with Philips. Successfully obtained a large number of patents for bald head technology. Of course, it is impossible for Philips to take out all the good things in the bottom of the box, but Dongfang Group is not without any foundation.

In fact, whether it is a P DVD player or a video player, the RA company under the Oriental Group has followed up. the purpose of obtaining a patent. It is to be able to independently produce core components, so as not to suffer from patent fees, but also to be controlled by others in terms of production capacity.

"How far has the optical drive factory's conversion technology upgrade work progressed?" Ke Lilun asked directly instead of looking at the documents that everyone had handed in.

"I contacted the optical drive factory yesterday, and they have basically finished preparations. An assembly line with a monthly production of 100,000 movements will start trial production next week!" A round-faced female employee wearing glasses quickly began to answer road.

After completing the transfer of production capacity, ra company established a new company in Hong Kong called ra Asia Manufacturing Company. The newly established ra Asia company is mainly responsible for managing all the wholly-owned and joint venture factories of ra company in Asia. The original ra American company, which was merged into Oriental Commercial, became its wholly-owned subsidiary, mainly responsible for the operation of the ra brand in the North American market.

As early as two years ago, ra Asia set up a sole proprietorship of an optical drive manufacturing plant in the deep sea special zone. On the surface, this factory is to produce CD-ROM drives for Aikang's ab series computers, but another purpose of Li Xuan's establishment is to prepare for the industry.

Ke Lilun nodded at the round-faced girl, and then turned his gaze to the other people in the small conference room. So another tall and thin male employee quickly settled the topic and began to introduce what he was responsible for: "Dongfang Semiconductor has begun to produce the first batch of decoding chips. It is expected to be shipped today and tomorrow! Jetta Electronics is here. The production line has also been set up, and the production of the decoder can start immediately after the chip arrives!"

The movement and the decoding circuit can be described as the two parts with the highest technical content in China. But in addition, a complete DVD player also includes other components such as servo preamplifier circuit, karaoke circuit, operation display panel, radio frequency modulator circuit, transformer, power supply, casing and so on.

The production work of the ra company should have been responsible for it. But Corellian also knew what to do next. This will be the first big test that he will face after serving as the vice president of Dongfang Commercial Company.

Therefore, he attached great importance to it from the beginning, actively coordinated with ra company, and kept track of the production progress of the DVD player, so as to help him better formulate promotion strategies.

"This is the end of today's morning meeting. Everyone should hurry up and follow up on the projects they are responsible for!" After listening to the reports of his staff, Ke Lilun did not say some nonsense, but simply ended the meeting decisively.

"Awei, please call the Peninsula Hotel for me. Reserve a table for afternoon tea!" After returning to his office, Ke Lilun instructed the assistant at the door.

A little over two minutes in the afternoon, Ke Lilun came to the lobby of the Peninsula Hotel ahead of schedule! Not long after he was seated, two men in suits also came to the lobby cafe of the Peninsula Hotel.

"Aaron, let me introduce you first, this is Mr. Hao Guoming, a top student at Northwestern University!" Li Ke said, pointing to the elegant man beside him who looked gentle and curly.

"Hello, Mr. Hao. I'm Ke Lilun!" Ke Lilun immediately stood up with a smile and shook hands with the other party.

"Aren't you a little surprised to see A Ming? It's inconvenient for Mr. Cai to come to Hong Kong in person. He is Mr. Cai's number one think tank!" Li Ke briefly introduced the identity of Mr. Hao Guoming.

"My boss is very honored that Guanrun Group can cooperate with Dongfang Group Station. As the plenipotentiary representative of the boss, I have come to negotiate with Mr. Ke!" Hao Guoming greeted Ke Lilun very politely.

Who is the boss in Hao Guoming's mouth? This Mr. Cai is the current leader of the Si-Hai Gang, Cai Guanrun, and the Si-Hai Gang is one of the three major Taiwan-Taiwan clubs. However, if only from the appearance of Hao Guoming, he is more like a successful urban white-collar worker, rather than a big brother on the road.

And the reason why Corellian would date such a person with a special background to meet. Nature has its own purpose.

Now the home audio and video playback equipment on the market, mainly DVD players and r video recorders. Among them, the former does not occupy a large share in the household market due to its high price, and is more popular in karaoke halls in Japan and Hong Kong.

So after the advent of the DVD player, the main competitor will be the r video recorder. But there hasn't been much progress in technology. On the contrary, in the technical standards formulated by the Oriental Research Institute, the image quality is only 250 lines, which is slightly inferior to that of home video recorders.

This is also one of the important reasons for not choosing developed markets such as Japan, Europe and the United States as a breakthrough point, because consumers in these places have higher economic income and are far more sensitive to technology than in backward regions.

In contrast, in relatively underdeveloped regions, consumers prefer to pursue high quality and low price. There is no obvious DVD player on the Internet, and you can only choose to fight the price war with the VCR. But in addition to the price factor, the DVD player has a very different place from other household appliances, that is, it also needs to play content.

As for the distribution channels of DVD players, Dongfang Shoji, with the help of its own customer resources and the company's chain of electronic hypermarkets, is enough to quickly spread the DVD players throughout the Asian market. However, in terms of playback content, it has a lot of disadvantages compared to VCRs.

Because the VCR has been out for more than ten years, there is already a mature video tape distribution market. For example, after a Hong Kong film is painted, companies in Southeast Asia and Taiwan will immediately come to buy the video tape distribution rights of the film.

The Hong Kong film industry has been booming in recent years, and new film companies have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain. But there are very few companies that can really rely on the box office to make profits. The income from the distribution of videotapes in other cities is the most important source of profit for a large number of small film companies!

To successfully promote its own DVD players, Oriental Commercial Corporation needs to provide enough DVDs for movies and TV series for consumers to watch. But after the DVD player goes on the market, it takes a process to form a sufficient number of possessions.

And when the number of DVD players is not large enough, it is naturally impossible to have a huge consumer market for discs, and it is impossible to attract distribution companies to issue discs on their own initiative. Therefore, if Dongfang Group wants to quickly promote the DVD player, the best way is to invest a sum of money by itself, and take the initiative to be responsible for the supply of disc content before the market matures!

But not to mention that this method requires a lot of capital investment, just to negotiate with the copyright owner to purchase the copyright requires a lot of energy. So Corell decided to choose another path - piracy!

In Japan, Europe and the United States and other regions with relatively complete copyright protection, the problem of piracy is not serious. But in other regions where copyright protection is not in place, this has always been a headache for film companies. For example, in Hong Kong, pirated videotapes of local films are relatively restrained, but almost all videotapes of Western films are pirated.

"Mr. Hao, as a company engaged in international trade in the world, Orient Commercial can purchase a full set of equipment and raw materials for the production of discs for Guanrun Group! But we are a company that respects international rules and will never support any possibility. Behavior that contradicts the law!" Ke Lilun said righteously to Hao Guoming.

Coolidon is going to secretly support the pirated disc industry to quickly enrich the content. But Dongfang Group can never do this kind of activity by itself, so Guanrun Group with a special background is undoubtedly one of the good partners. Therefore, Ke Lilun specially contacted Mr. Cai Guanrun from Taiwan through Li Ke.

"But in order to show support for your company, after your factory is completed, your company's factory can be responsible for the production of all products under ATV Group and Asia Entertainment Holdings!" Ke Lilun continued with a smile.

In this way, Dongfang Commercial also found an excellent excuse for the problem of providing manufacturing equipment for Guanrun Group. The reason why Guanrun Group purchased production equipment is to win the order from Dongfang Group~www.readwn.com~ As for whether Guanrun Group will produce pirated discs after completing the order of Dongfang Group, this has nothing to do with Dongfang Group .

"Guanrun Group is a legitimate business enterprise! I can also promise to your company that if we have the opportunity to undertake relevant orders from Dongfang Group, we will never produce more illegal discs than the order!" Hao Guoming very much said sincerely.

The Peninsula Hotel is one of the most exclusive afternoon tea places in Hong Kong, and the three men are all well-dressed and elegant. If you were standing by and eavesdropping, you might guess that this was a normal business negotiation. The two sides did not have a fierce quarrel, but reached a very friendly cooperation.

"Your trick is really poisonous. When piracy is rampant in the future, it is estimated that half of the film companies in Hong Kong will be killed by you!" After Hao Guoming left, Li Ke suddenly laughed and scolded Ke Lilun, who was quietly tasting coffee. .

"What does this have to do with me, did the Oriental Group do anything illegal? It is the so-called sinister human heart, it is not our turn to control what other people do! The future of the Hong Kong film industry is dead or alive, and it is your filmmakers who need to be concerned. The problem!

If you want to talk about this issue, you might as well go to Mr. Zeng Zhiwei! "Colilan shook his head and said very disapprovingly. (To be continued.)