MultiMedia

Ratech multimedia, a new department under the Ratech Electronics umbrella is pleased to announce the availability of our newest technology. The transfer of CCTV video from a standard or SVHS videotape onto CD-ROM is now available. Each CD-ROM is recorded with the internationally recognized MPEG format, which means that the CD-Rom can be played back utilizing almost any "off the shelf" viewer.

MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group), is the name of a family of standards used for coding audio-visual information (e.g., movies, video, music) in a digital compressed format. The major advantage of MPEG compared to other video and audio coding formats is that MPEG files are much smaller but of the same quality. This is because MPEG uses very sophisticated compression techniques.

All the developers of such technology in this field guarantee that developments and any new CD-ROM drives, and drivers, will be backwardly compatible with the MPEG format meaning that current CD-ROM's will play back on future DVD equipment.

This is comforting to know as DVD appears to be the next step, but to use DVD (for which an international standard has yet to be set) in "our" market (i.e. single copies of the CD-ROM) is not yet viable, but probably will be in the foreseeable future. Ratech Electronics Limited will take this technology on board for trials without any further costs to our customers as it becomes available.

Ratech Electronics Ltd., 260 Spinnaker Way, Unit#7, Vaughan, ON L4K 4P9. Tel: 905-660-7072; Fax: 905-660-1519.