BRIEFS

CABLEWORLD STAFF

It's the button that gives networks and advertisers the heebie jeebies, and the prime reason why ReplayTV has been the target of a devastating lawsuit. We're talking about the 30-second skip button, which, with a single press, advances programming in half-minute chunks and is handy for quickly whipping through a block of consecutive commercials. While TiVo doesn't offer this feature to its users, it turns out that a 30-second skip is buried within the programming of the unit and can be brought to the surface using an ?Easter Egg,? or a hidden software application. According to the anonymous poster, the ?? >|? button acts as a 30-second skip button once the proper code is entered via the remote control. Attention, Hollywood: This really works.

Dr. Masao Sugimoto, president and founder of e-Box, died on Dec. 22 in Tokyo. Over the course of his career, Dr. Sugimoto gained the lasting admiration, affection and respect of everyone from engineers to CEOs within the consumer electronics, motion picture, cable, satellite and terrestrial TV industries. Dr. Sugimoto founded the e-Box consortium, composed of Pioneer, Sharp, National Semiconductor, Sigma Designs, CMC Magnetics, iVAST and Modern Video Film, to provide operators with a new digital cable solution, based on MPEG-4 technology.

When it rains, it pours. First SeaChange saw its stock drop 85% in 2002; now a New York law firm is taking the company to court. Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP has filed a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Mass., on behalf of those who purchased the common shares of SeaChange on or about its Jan. 29, 2002 offering. The complaint alleges that ?the Prospectus was materially false and misleading because it omitted, among other things, that the Company's ability to compete was strongly hindered as it could not supply server systems sizable enough necessary to obtain contracts from cable companies situated in key metropolitan areas.?

Charter Communications has announced the launch of the Charter Channel, a self-produced customer service portal being offered to nearly 3 million U.S. households. To implement the new channel, each of Charter's 180 largest head-ends will be equipped with Adtec's Soloist2-S-DVD MPEG2 playback system. The prerecorded DVD content can then be manipulated into the Charter Channel's program schedule. Adtec's playback system also allows for automatic switching, advanced scheduling, playback verification and high-quality MPEG2 playback with up to 60 hours of storage.