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2000 Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association Show READ ALL ABOUT IT! Companies Promise Sky Full of New Services If the promises of this year’s Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association Show come true, the days of only being able to use your TV for one thing—watching TV—are truly numbered. The SBCA’s annual convention opens today with more than 150 exhibitors touting their products, services, and equipment. Many of them, including the two DBS services, are slated to bring multiple-task units to new heights with reception systems that combine satellite service with Internet access, interactive functions, and digital video recorder capabilities. DBS must-carry also will be a hot topic of conversation, industry hands said, but politics are not expected to dominate the show as they did last year. On the show floor, though, the emphasis will be on the new and soon-to-be available. The show’s exhibitors, more than 40 of them appearing for the first time, are using approximately 65,000 square feet of the Las Vegas Convention Center, SBCA spokesman James Ashurst said. “Overall, we’re very optimistic about this year’s show,” he said. Garnering much of the attention will be DirecTv and EchoStar Communications, which both plan to show off a bevy of products and services. DirecTv and Microsoft Corp. intend to unveil a glimpse of the DirecTv/Internet access/digital video recorder they are developing with Thomson Consumer Electronics, DirecTv spokesman Bob Marsocci said. DirecTv also plans to show off the combination America Online/DBS receiver its sister company Hughes Network Systems is building, he said. HNS is slated to roll out that product by the early fourth quarter. DirecTv also plans to demonstrate the interactive features Wink plans to provide later this summer, though Wink’s rollout has been delayed several times already. EchoStar will have working demonstrations of the combination DBS receiver/two-way satellite data service it plans to roll out with Gilat-to-Home by the end of the year, EchoStar spokesman Marc Lumpkin said. EchoStar also plans to show the combination DBS/DVD box it first talked about at the Consumer Electronics Show early this year. EchoStar also intends to highlight its other interactive DBS initiatives with OpenTV and Wink. On the C-band side, Motorola plans to show a new version of the digital/analog 4D-TV receiver, said Joe Cornwall, of Motorola’s C-band unit. Motorola plans to ship that product, with a suggested retail price of $1,299, to distributors in late August or early September, Cornwall said. Motorola last month cut the retail price of the original version of 4D-TV from about $1,000 to $849, he said. Motorola will also display its long-awaited digital sidecar unit. The rollout of that product, which likely will sell for under $400, has been pushed back until at least next month Cornwall said. Motorola is optimistic all of those things, along with various marketing efforts, will help spark C-band sales, he said. “I think C-band has a new lease on life,” he said. TURN THE PAGE OTHER ISSUES TO LOOK FOR: Tuesday, July 20, 2000 Wednesday, July 21, 2000   Please direct questions about this site to general.mail@satbiznews.com q 2000 Satellite Business News Inc. All rights reserved.