Its Innovations Are High-Tech but Not Cutting-Edge

Most high-tech companies like to boast that they are on the cutting edge. Not Gemstar.

“This is not cryogenics or going to space,” says Chief Executive Henry Yuen. “We are using known technology.

With Gemstar’s VCR Plus, users with specially outfitted VCRs can set their machines to record by punching the codes listed next to the programs in TV listing guides.

A chip in the VCR then de-scrambles the code--usually three to eight digits--using an algorithm. The resulting sequence of numbers identifies the show to be recorded based on its start time, the date, the channel and the program length. The chip then converts that data into a recording instruction for the VCR, said Tony Tam, Gemstar’s director of engineering.

Gemstar also is using this technology in V-Chip Plus, a product scheduled for release next year. V-Chip Plus will allow parents to block specific TV shows by punching in the VCR Plus codes, which are decoded by chips built into TV sets.

Gemstar’s other core technology was used to build Index Plus, which keeps track of programs recorded on videotape. Once the index is displayed on the TV screen, a user can select a show by highlighting it with a remote control. The VCR then prompts the user to insert the appropriate tape, which is automatically rewound or fast-forwarded to get to the program.

Tam said Index Plus captures the title of a program from an unseen portion of the TV signal called the vertical blanking interval, or VBI. The title is then stored on the videotape, along with an electronic marker that indicates where the program begins. When a tape is inserted into the VCR, the machine reads that data to figure out what shows are recorded and their order.

The index data from the VBI are also stored on a chip in the VCR so it can display an on-screen alphabetical listing of all of the shows in a user’s videotape library, Tam said.

A product like Index Plus will become essential once analog tapes are discarded in favor of a digital device that stores programs the way a personal computer stores files, said Mark Hardie, analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass.

This technology also runs Gemstar’s forthcoming on-screen TV program listing system, called Guide Plus Gold. With this electronic program guide, a chip built into a TV reads program information from the VBI and displays it on screen to create a substitute for paper directories such as TV Guide, Tam said. News headlines from NBC--carried over the network’s VBI--will augment Gemstar’s guide.

A “smart agent” built into the guide will keep track of shows the viewer watches and use that information to suggest other shows--or targeted advertising--that the viewer might want to see, Yuen said.

Long-term, Hardie said, he expects that a single set-top box could store viewing preferences for each person in a household.

But a few other companies, including United Video Satellite, which made an unsuccessful bid for Gemstar last month, are building program guides of their own. Gemstar is suing United and other companies in an effort to guard its patent rights.

Promising as Guide Plus Gold sounds, so did digital audio tapes, MiniDisc players and other much-heralded technologies that never caught on with consumers.

“We’re still taking the first steps,” Hardie said.