Extraordinary Genius

“Manager Feng, good news! Good news!”

Feng Yu held his phone away from his ears. What the h.e.l.l washe shouting for?

“What’s wrong? Old Jiang, why are you so excited?” Feng Yuasked. He was also curious. Did Jiang Wanmeng make any breakthrough in hisresearch?

“We have successfully developed MPEG-II!” Jiang Wanmengshouted excitedly.

“What did you say?” Feng Yu was stunned.

“We have conducted research on the coding based on yourrequirements. The audio can reach 4 audio channels, and it is clearer andcrisp. The video quality is also better. The resolution is the highest in theworld. Most importantly, no mosaics will appear in the video!”

Mosaics was the error of the video’s picture quality. Colorsof the part of the video were mixed, and it looks like burry squares.

Mosaics was one of the more pressing issues faced by VCDdevelopment. VCD video quality was clearer than ca.s.sette tapes, but the discsare easily damaged. Once there are scratches, the video and audio will belagged, and mosaics will appear. The user experience will be bad when thishappens.

The small cinemas and video lounges in China had feedback.After playing the same VCD several times, Mosaics will appear. The more timethe VCD was played, the more mosaics will appear in the video.

Wind and Rain electronics had introduced a VCD repairsolution. It is a type of cleaning solution, which could clean the VCDs and letthe player read the data better. Later on, Wind and Rain introduced a new kindof cleaning solution made from Alkaline solvent and polishing material. It canbe used to polish the VCDs.

Polishing will lighten the scratches, and the player couldread the data better. But after polishing, the VCD will be damaged more easily.This solution was only temporarily.

If the mosaics could not be eradicated, then they must lowerthe possibilities of mosaics appearing. Feng Yu remembered about the Super VCDfrom his previous life. This technology appeared in the era between VCD andDVD. It was also because of this technology that let VCD became more popular andcaused the death of VHS.

The earliest VCD used MPEG-1 technology, and the videoquality was not very clear. The audio also did not have channels to choosefrom. This next generation technology had 4 channels to choose from. Theviewers had more options for the movies’ audio. It will also have duo audio fortwo languages and increase the market for VCD.

Also, this new technology will increase the functions of VCDplayers. The VCD will have the option to play music only. This was mostsuitable for karaoke.

This Super VCD will also threaten the position of Laserdisc.Not only this technology will cause VHS death, but it also caused the declineof Laserdisc.

Feng Yu had asked Wind and Rain Electronic and Aiwa toconduct research on this technology together. But he never expects thistechnology to be developed so fast.

Feng Yu remembered in his previous life, Sony was the onewho had developed this technology. Later, Sony exchanged the technologies withPhilips and set the standards for this industry.

The players that were produced were not called Super VCD. Itwas called a DVD. That means the Super VCD and DVD were using the same players.But the DVD had more significant storage than the Super VCD.

In Feng Yu previous life, many people discovered someplayers could play VCDs and some could not. That’s because some of them wereusing Super VCD players and these players could read DVD.

There was also another advantage of this technology. Whichis the increased storage of the disc? A super VCD disc could store a wholemovie. It no longer needs to split a movie into 2 discs. This would save thetrouble of switching disc in the middle of a movie.

Two Super VCD disc could record a concert, or one disc couldstore more than 20 music videos. It was a good deal for the consumers, and theywill be more willing to buy music VCDs.

Feng Yu unintentionally faced Sony again. First, Aiwa’sWalkman had beat Sony and lowered their profits from their Walkman sales. Then,Aiwa introduces their CD players. It s.n.a.t.c.hes Sony’s music players marketshare.

It also caused Nintendo to fall out with Sony. This madeSony video games business to shrink. To recover their sales, Sony had tochannel their funds to set up a Video games division to developed CD-ROM gameconsole. This was to fight back at Nintendo’s monopoly of the gaming industry.

Feng Yu remembered that at the end of this year, Sony willintroduce the first generation of PlayStation. It was Sony’s most successfulelectronic product after Walkman. It held the record of having sales of 100million units!

Later, PSP, PS2, PS3, and PS4 were all successful. All themodels had high sales.

This year should be Sony’s best year in terms oftechnologies breakthrough. But in this lifetime, this year was a tragedy forSony. Sony does not own the DVD technology anymore.

Feng Yu had asked Jiang Wanmeng to contact Fu Guangzhengimmediately to apply for the patents. They must announce their player’sstandards and make it the industry’s benchmark!

Someone had said that a top company will set the standardsfor the industry and a second rated company will sell its brand. A third ratedcompany will sell its products, and a fourth-rated company will sell itsresources. Setting the standards and benchmark for the industry was what mostcompanies were aiming for.

Patented technologies could only prevent other company fromusing it in their products. It will not prevent others from making a breakthroughwith that technology. Sony could always breakdown Wind and Rain Electronic’stechnologies and develop new technologies.

In Feng Yu’s previous life, many companies fought for theindustry standards for several years. All the companies’ products had differenttechnologies, and all of them wanted their technologies to be the industry’sstandards. These companies include Toshiba, Pioneer, etc.

In the end, all the companies realized it will not end wellfor them if they carry on fighting against each other. If two influentialcompanies fought against each other, some other company would take advantage ofthis. That’s why all the companies stopped.

But sometime later, the companies started to compete againsteach other for the DVD players and many DVD encoding technologies wereintroduced.

In the current life, these electronic giants’ technologieswere all outdated. Wind and Rain Electronics had introduced the VCD first. Windand Rain electronics had the advantage in R&D. Also, other companies’businesses were diversified. They were not concentrating on developing oneproduct like Wind and Rain. For instance, Sony was also developing PlayStationat the same time. Toshiba and other companies were researching digital camerasand computers. They were not focusing all their efforts on one product.

Wind and Rain Electronics was different. Feng Yu does notwant Wind and Rain to enter the computer industry. He had Lenovo’s shares afterall. The digital camera market will be a ma.s.sive market in the future. Butcurrently, the resolution was not good enough to replace film camera. Digitalcameras will only be accepted by the consumers after the resolution was over 1million.

That will only happen at the end of the century. At thattime, Wind and Rain Electronics could just exchange technologies with othercompanies to get what they want.

2 weeks later, Wind and Rain Electronics held a pressconference in Beijing to introduce their high storage multimedia disc’stechnologies. They also told the press that Wind and Rain Electronics hadsuccessfully developed MPEG-II technology. The first generation of Super VCDwill be introduced to the market at the end of the year!

Translator’snotes:

MPEG-2

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