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Chinese electronics makers plan to start marketing EVD players as early as Christmas
21.11.2003
Shanghai. (Interfax-China) - China's electronics makers will begin marketing their EVD (Enhanced Versatile Disc) players as early as Christmas, Interfax learned after interviewing several companies. Manufactures, however, are worried about how the market will respond to the first Chinese developed digital laser video system.
Shanghai-based SVA Group said it would start selling EVD players ahead of Christmas, while Jiangsu Shinco Electronics Group said it would begin sales in January of 2004, ahead of China's Spring Festival holiday (Chinese New Years). Both companies produce DVD players that are popular among Chinese consumers. Meanwhile, however, Xiamen Xiaxin Electronics said it would wait and see how the market responds to EVD technology before beginning sales of its own EVD players. All three of these companies are among a group of 15 leading Chinese industry players that co-funded the EVD standards developer Beijing E-world Technology.
Additionally, Hao Jie, president of Beijing E-world, disclosed to Interfax in an interview that Shinco has already ordered 5 mln EVD movie disks to be bundled with the sales of their EVD players. Shinco officials, however, declined to comment on the issue.
Hao, furthermore, estimated that sales of EVD players would to hit 1 mln sets for the full year of 2004, and that sales would increase to 12 mln sets by 2006.
Worries, however, continue to linger over the prospects of EVD players on the Chinese market. These worries exist partly because of the higher prices EVD players will demand, as compared to DVD players. EVD players are likely to be priced between RMB 1,000 (USD 120.8) and RMB 2,000 (USD 241.6), as compared to the RMB 500 (USD 60.4) to RMB 1,000 (120.8) price range most DVD players fall into.
Moreover, although EVD is reportedly capable of delivering video that is five times clearer than DVD technology, this difference in quality is only perceivable when an EVD player is connect to a high definition television (HDTV). China's current HDTV market has been limited by higher prices, but has shows recent signs of growth. Nevertheless, manufacturers fear that China's small HDTV market will also limit the popularity of EVD players and that the new technology will get the cold shoulder from price sensitive Chinese consumer.
Despite these worries, some electronics producers are still pinning big hopes to the EVD market, largely because EVD players enjoy higher profit margins than DVD players, SVA spokesman Tao Jun explained to Interfax.
"The cut-throat competition on the DVD market leaves almost no margin for domestic producers," Tao noted.
Electronics -- China Spins A New Disc:
The EVD is Beijing's attempt to set an industry standard for the next generation of DVD players; It's a bold and risky proposition
By Anthony Kuhn in Changzhou
1,373 words
26 February 2004
Far Eastern Economic Review
(c) 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
FOR ALL THE HYPE about the trail-blazing potential of the Enhanced Versatile
Disc, the roll-out of EVD players on appliance-store shelves across China
since December has been remarkably quiet. Probably its makers are only too
aware of the high stakes they face in promoting China's first home-grown
standard for the video industry.
Developed as a successor to the Digital Versatile Disc, the EVD offers
better picture and sound quality than the DVD when used with high-definition
televisions. If the EVD establishes itself as a popular video format, China
could exceed its role as a manufacturing powerhouse and become a more
competitive player in the electronics industry. But analysts say that
achieving dominance in China, let alone internationally, will be difficult
for the new format, given the multinational race to make the next generation
of laser-video systems, and the scarcity of movie titles available on EVD.
The consortium of Chinese government agencies and electronics companies that
developed the EVD "faces a lot of commercial hurdles before it can put an
EVD in every home," says Scott Kennedy, a political economist at Indiana
University, who studies China's electronics industry. "In digital
technologies it's hard for companies to move up the value-added chain."
But that's precisely what the Chinese government is determined to do. It
wants to create globally competitive Chinese companies capable of original
design, not just assembly. Despite its manufacturing muscle, China's
electronics industry holds little proprietary technology. Along with mobile
telecommunications and wireless data transmission, the EVD is part of
Beijing's drive to establish its own technical standards in key industries.
In 1999, the State Economic and Trade Commission approved $1.2 million for
the EVD's development by a 13-member consortium led by Shinco, China's
leading DVD maker. The members then became stockholders in Beijing E-World,
the consortium's corporate identity, charged with conducting core research,
holding the EVD's patents and collecting royalties. "The government feels
that domestic companies don't have the development capabilities of foreign
firms, and only by banding together can the firms be competitive," explains
E-World's president, Hao Jie.
For Chinese electronics companies, developing proprietary technology is also
becoming a matter of survival. "The manufacturing cost of this kind of
consumer electronics product is now so low that they're getting down to
shaving off the intellectual-property value," says Julie Schwerin, CEO of
InfoTech, a research firm based in Vermont in the United States.
Intellectual-property value means the royalties that manufacturers have to
pay patent-holders.
Although the bulk of the world's DVD players are made in China,
DVD-technology patents are owned by foreign giants, such as Hitachi,
Matsushita, Toshiba and Time Warner, to which Chinese manufacturers pay
hefty fees. For instance, Shinco, which claims nearly a third of China's
DVD-player market, no longer sells DVD players in the U.S., where they were
retailing for $60 each -- of which as much as a third went on royalty
payments to DVD-patent holders. "The more we sell, the more we lose,"
laments Fan Wenjian, the company's spokesman, at its head office in
Changzhou, in Jiangsu province.
Makers of the new EVD players must still pay royalties to DVD-patent holders
so that EVD machines can play DVDs -- though the Chinese Electronics
Industry Association has managed to bargain down the fee from $22 per player
to $15. But if EVD takes off as a video standard, shareholders in Beijing
E-World will own a dominant technology for which they don't have to pay
royalties -- and indeed will be able to charge others who want to join the
standard.
Shinco still imports two key components for its EVD players: The lasers that
read DVD discs are mostly made by Japanese firms, and the silicon chips that
decode the EVD's digital data come from an American company, though E-World
owns the chip technology. Fan says the company is confident that it can
eventually source all its components domestically. Shinco, which spent $3
million to help develop the EVD, now distributes the players through several
electronics chain stores in China, and Fan says they are selling 100 players
a day nationwide. Sales of EVD players are estimated to peak in two years,
he says, by which time it will become Shinco's flagship product.
Before that happens, though, it will have to overcome some serious hurdles.
Unlike other key technologies, the EVD is a voluntary standard that can only
succeed if it's embraced by consumers. For national-security reasons,
Beijing is forcing foreign companies that want to sell certain kinds of
wireless devices in China to use Chinese-made encryption software. But
Beijing E-World can't force consumers to buy EVD players, which are double
the price of DVD players.
Wealth of content holds the key to the EVD's success, analysts say. Some
1,600 American and Asian movie titles on EVD will begin to hit retail stores
by April, according to Hao Jie of Beijing E-World. Hong Kong-based
publishers have bought the rights to the movies, and negotiations for the
rights to new movies from major Hollywood studios including MGM and 20th
Century Fox are under way, says Hao. For now, Shinco is giving away five
movies with each machine it sells.
Infotech's Schwerin reckons that other major studios will monitor the EVD's
sales and acceptance before committing their movies to the new format.
Intellectual-property protection is key to persuading studios to release
their movies on EVD. Shinco's Fan says that each EVD disc will have its own
code key, making the counterfeiting of titles much harder. Of course DVD
makers, too, thought that their products would be piracy-resistant, but
China is now awash in pirated DVDs.
That begs another question: Will consumers buy an EVD player and genuine EVD
movies, when they can buy a DVD player and pirated DVD movies at less than
half the price? The answer depends partly on their willingness to replace
analogue TV sets with digital high-definition TV sets. The EVD's superior
quality can be seen only on HDTVs, which provide sharper pictures; China
plans to begin broadcasting in HDTV in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Shinco is betting that consumers who can afford at least $400 for a HDTV set
will not be fazed by the $240 price of an EVD player or $2.50 for a genuine
disc. Sales of HDTV sets have doubled in recent years and now account for
around 20% of the market for TV sets, according to the China Audio
Industries Association.
But a further challenge looms: In the next few years, consumers will have a
choice between the EVD and a new generation of high-definition DVD systems.
Big multinationals like Sony and Philips Electronics are developing a new
format called Blu-ray, using blue lasers, while Toshiba and NEC are backing
a competing standard called high-definition DVD, or HD-DVD. By launching
their format first, the EVD makers hope that their technology will become
the standard in China, and the size of the Chinese market will then force
the international giants to support it.
And then there's the question of whether the EVD consortium can hold
together in the face of these hurdles. Indiana University's Kennedy points
out that "very few governments are successful in getting corporations to
cooperate in developing new products. The companies just don't want to
cooperate." A previous Chinese consortium to develop the Super VCD, a
successor to the VCD, split into feuding camps of manufacturers, some of
which rejected government involvement.
Kennedy further cites the Beta videotape, which, despite Japanese government
support in the 1970s, lost in market competition to the less expensive VHS
standard. Unless it can prove an exception to this pattern, the EVD could
end up as just another digital artefact in China's video evolution.
Tiring of royalties, China seeks compression spec for video
By Mike Clendenin, EE Times
October 03, 2003 (10:47 AM EDT)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/article/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=18309910
TAIPEI, Taiwan — China is pushing to define a homegrown audio and visual compression technology that would rival MPEG-4 and H.264 and, by various estimates, save Chinese consumers and manufacturers anywhere from $300 million to $1 billion in royalties during the next decade. The video compression spec is due out at the end of this year, followed by basic decoder intellectual property (IP) in 2004.
The standards initiative is part of a Chinese effort to lessen reliance on foreign IP. Increasingly frustrated over clashes with licensing agencies like MPEG LA, China is striving to wean itself from foreign standards and to free itself of royalty payments for high-volume products, such as DVD players and cell phones.
The move could undercut the power and revenue of licensing agencies like MPEG LA, a consortium of patent holders such as Apple and Sun that charge a royalty of $2.50 per system, compared with China's proposal of 1 yuan (12 cents) for its codec. During the past few years, MPEG LA and others have had trouble collecting royalties from Chinese manufacturers of DVD players, who feel the combined fees of $15 to $20 per system are too high.
Since Chinese manufacturers produced 10 million of the world's 50 million DVD players in 2002, the stakes are high. And over the next decade, as Chinese consumers help expand the market for consumer electronics, they will only get higher.
The video compression project is directed by the Audio Video Coding Standard (AVS) Workgroup of China, a consortium of 50 universities, government organizations and companies that has been given authority by China's influential Ministry of Information Industry and placed under the supervision of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The academy has been working on compression technologies for more than five years, but few details have emerged.
About a year ago, during the height of acrimony between Chinese manufacturers and various licensing agencies, the AVS was formed to help commercialize the research.
"The government was scared by the DVD royalty fiasco," said Mike Yu, chief technology officer for Vimicro, a Beijing-based designer of graphics chips for cell phones. "They understand that there is a new organization working on the next-generation compression technology and they are worried. They don't want to be left alone again."
That fear was a big factor in China's adoption of a little-known mobile-phone standard called TD-SCDMA, or time-division synchronous code-division multiple access. Supported by Siemens AG in Europe more than a decade ago, the technology was once considered a has-been. But the Chinese government rekindled interest in TD-SCDMA and then co-developed the latest iteration with Siemens in exchange for lower royalty payments.
The government has helped build an AVS-like consortium around TD-SCDMA, and foreign chip makers have come together in joint ventures to hedge their bets against the more entrenched standards, wideband CDMA and cdma2000. TD-SCDMA is now one of three international third-generation cellular standards and a contender in China for a 3G license.
Other examples of greater self-reliance are also emerging. Over the summer, China formed a group devoted to networking home appliances and IT products. The Information Gateway Resource Sharing (IGRS) working group consists of some of China's biggest electronics companies, including Great Wall Computer Group, Hisense, Konka, Legend Group and TCL.
IGRS is similar to another standards group founded this summer in the United States, dubbed the Digital Home Working Group, of which Legend is also a member. Although the two groups have similar goals and will cross-pollinate each other's markets with products, it appears that little contact has occurred between them.IGRS is expected to develop a protocol for automatic detection, networking and resource sharing among IT systems, home appliances and communication devices in wired and wireless environments. The standard will use a TCP/IP-based application protocol, which should be out in draft form by year's end. Development tools will follow next year and a final protocol will be ready in 2005, the group said.
In a statement, Konka said, "The establishment of the IGRS working group reflects the desire of Chinese companies to get rid of the dominance of core technologies and standards of foreign big names in the information technology industry."
China has also made forays into new optical-disk technology during the past few years, but nothing concrete has emerged. Part of the problem has been overcoming an entrenched video-CD and DVD industry that carries most of the world's popular content, such as Hollywood movies.
As much as Chinese manufacturers would like to be free of foreign IP, there is little alternative to using it. Even if their systems used a Chinese standard, they would still want to be backward-compatible with DVD and CD technology for domestic and, more importantly, foreign export markets like North America and Europe.
Unlike TD-SCDMA, however, the AVS specification will not require a massive and expensive new infrastructure, so it may be easier to implement over time. The government has no immediate plans to make it mandatory, said Huang Tiejun, secretary-general of the AVS Workgroup. Huang said the group can develop a more efficient compression technology than MPEG-4 or MPEG-2. After that, "the market will decide," he said. "AVS is only a choice — a better choice for markets in China and outside of China."
Foreign companies have taken an interest in the project, but it's difficult to tell whether they think AVS is a legitimate rival to MPEG-4. At this early stage, it is more likely they just want to keep an eye on developments. Philips, Sony, Microsoft and IBM have been members of the AVS Workgroup, and LSI Logic Corp. recently joined.
Huang said the consortium is open to anyone who can contribute research staff and pay the roughly $1,000 annual fee.
As part of the 3C consortium that requires a $5 royalty payment per DVD system, Philips and Sony have had their own problems with royalty collection in China and are viewed by some Chinese manufacturers as part of the problem. Philips believes otherwise and said it is willing to lend its expertise to China-based standards.
"Philips is pushing MPEG-4, but in China I think Philips is doing the right thing to support Chinese efforts and to also try to push our own IP," said Ernest Ma, Philips' representative to the AVS Workgroup.
Even domestically, AVS will have an uphill battle against MPEG compression standards. Vimicro's Yu cautioned, "The difficult part is to convince everybody to take it seriously and come up with product."
THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONGDepartment of Electronic Engineering SEMINAR Audio Video Coding Standard (AVS) – target and status By Prof. Lu Yu Zhejiang University, China Date: 27 May, 2004 25 May, 2004 Time: 14:30 pm Venue: Room 418, Engineering Building Abstract: Digital coding technology is one of the core technologies of Digital Television, Digital Video Disk (DVD and High Definition Disk), Broadband Network Multimedia Applications (Video Conferencing, Video on Demand), and new generation Mobile Communication. Establishing a standard for digital audio and video coding technology is of great significance to the Chinese Hi-Tech industry. In China during the next 5-10 years, DTV,HD-DVD, Broadband Network and 3G Mobile Communication will develop rapidly on a large volume. It is very urgent to set standards and clarify the development strategy of audio and video coding technology. To provide technology development and meet the demands of industry, the “Audio Video coding Standard Working Group of China (AVS)” was approved by the Science and Technology Department of Ministry of Information Industry in June 2002. The mandate of the working group is to establish the standard for compression, decompression, manipulation and display in digital audio and video multimedia equipment and systems. After a brief description of the short history and milestones of AVS, the principles of technical selection of the standard, the organization and working method of the experts group, and the status of this standard will be introduced. Then, some potential application scenarios will be discussed to uncover the background of the next generation AVS, AVS-M. Biography: Prof. Yu’s research interests are video coding, multimedia communication and ASIC design. She is co-chair of both the video subgroup and implementation subgroup of Audio Video coding Standard (AVS) of China. She is the inventor or co-inventor of 13 pending patents. ALL ARE WELCOME For enquiries: Prof. W.K. Cham, Tel: 2609 8281
AV Standard Draft Revealed
The Audio Video Coding Standard (AVS) working group released the final committee draft of its video standard and called for a verification of all patents involved in the draft.
If there are no objections to patent claims in the draft by December 10, it will be submitted to the Ministry of Information to make it an industrial standard in China, which may become a national standard next year said Huang Tiejun, secretary general of the working group.
The AVS working group, including 64 leading research institutes, universities and companies from home and abroad, aimed to formulate a Chinese audio and visual coding and decoding standard to change the situation that Chinese enterprises and consumers have to pay heavy royalties to foreign patent holders for devices like DVD players, digital TVs. (China Daily)
(11/27/2003)
Milestone for video standard 2003-12-02
Author: LIU BAIJIA,China Business Weekly staff
Chinese scientists and researchers have made big strides in developing a home-made audio and video coding and decoding standard with the release of the final committee draft of the video section.
"It is a milestone in our work, as it is the most complex and difficult stage in the creation of the audio video coding standard (AVS)," said Huang Tiejun, secretary-general of the AVS working group, which is in charge of devising a Chinese standard with the participation of 64 Chinese and foreign research institutes, universities and businesses.
The AVS proposal includes three branches: System design, video standards and audio standards.
Since the AVS working group is using similar system design as the current international standard and the video component of a media product takes up more than 90 per cent of storage space and bandwidth - while the audio portion uses the remainder - it is the most important part of the AVS standard.
The working group's video standard has a compression ratio three times higher than the current international mark of MPEG2 and is similar to MPEG4, which is expected to be the international standard in the future - but the AVS is much less complicated than the MPEG4 version.
MPEG stands for the Motion Picture Expert Group, representing the uniform compression and decompression codes of media data, widely used in DVDs, CDs and online movies.
Huang said last Tuesday that his group is now soliciting for a patent pool, which will end around December 10.
The move means anyone who objects to the ownership of patents in the AVS video standard can raise their claims and call for ownership verification, which will decide how much the holder of a patent can get in royalties.
Once completed, the working group will concentrate on the audio standard, which will be hopefully finished by the end of the year, according to Huang.
When both the audio and video standards are ready, the group will submit the drafts to the Ministry of Information Industry so it can become an industrial standard, which will be adopted by the electronic and information industries and governed by the ministry. It may finally become a national standard next year.
The AVS standard will be first tested this month on a broadband network belonging to Legend Group, the biggest computer maker in China.
With the progress of Chinese researchers, the AVS standard is also playing a more active role in reducing patent royalties as well as burdens on consumers, which is the main reason why local scientists want to devise such a standard.
Last year, Chinese DVD player makers reached agreements with the so-called 6C patent licensing alliance that included Hitachi, Matsushita, Toshiba, JVC, Mitsubishi and Time Warner and the 3C alliance formed by Phillips, Sony and Pioneer to pay US$4 and US$5 royalties for every DVD player they exported. China exported about 10 million DVD players in 2002.
The royalty on every device using the MPEG2 standard is US$2.5. It is estimated that Chinese consumers may buy 400 million digital TVs and DVD players in the next 10 years, so it means that they could have pay around US$1 billion.
The AVS standard plans to charge only 1 yuan (US$0.12) for every coding or decoding device in the future.
Meanwhile, the MPEG Licensing Authority (MPEG LA), a company which helps MPEG patent owners charge royalties, previously wanted to charge 25 US cents on each device using the MPEG4 standard and another 2 US cents for every hour that consumers listen or watch audio or video products.
The progress of the AVS standard soon attracted interest from the US-based licensing agent.
Huang revealed the MPEG LA chief paid a visit to the AVS working group in September and exchanged views on compression technologies and licensing policies, while asking the AVS to be linked to the MPEG standard, which was declined by the Chinese side.
On November 17, MPEG LA released its new licensing strategy, which said the new royalties on every device will be 20 US cents and that there will be no royalties on the first 100,000 products.
The charge on content also became 2 US cents per title, which means consumers do not have to pay 4 US cents for a two-hour movie.
"It is hard to say that our achievements are the only reason MPEG LA's attitude changed, but one thing is for sure, our progress promoted the change," said Huang.
However, Huang said he did not believe a Chinese-developed standard was beneficial only to local consumers.
"The standard will (also extend) to other countries," he said.
The AVS working group has also attracted members like US information technology giants IBM and Microsoft, audio and visual technology firm On2 Technology, European semiconductor firm STMicro and Japanese electronics giants Panasonic and Sony.
China Aims to Set Phone Standard
September 4, 2003
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
China Aims to Set Phone Standard
Move Is Part of Attempt to Boost Use
Of Chinese Innovations World-Wide
By EVAN RAMSTAD
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
HONG KONG -- China surprised the wireless industry three years ago by
declaring it would create its own technical standard for third-generation
mobile phones. Then it said it was going to develop its own format for
digital television. And five weeks ago, it announced it was creating a
different audio and video standard for the next wave of DVD players and
video-game players.
China's drive to create new standards in high technology is part of its
broader desire to claim equal footing with the world's top economic
powers. While China now makes more electronic goods than any other
country, the underlying technology nearly always comes from somewhere
else.
Its manufacturers pay a price for that dependence. Chinese DVD-player
makers pay between $3.50 and $5 a machine to the Japanese and European
firms that own DVD patents. Manufacturers in such places as Japan and the
U.S. often pay lower fees because they own some of the patents they use.
A standard is simply an agreement on how to accomplish a technical task
using a variety of patented ideas. The current standard for turning audio
and video into digital signals, called MPEG-2, involves patents from 22
companies around the world, but none from China.
By creating home-grown technical standards, China is trying to increase
the use of Chinese innovations world-wide. And it is using its own large
domestic market to help speed up their adoption. By requiring these
standards to be used on technical products in China, international
companies that want access to that market are forced to make products that
use them.
Some companies even publicly support and help develop these new standards.
For example, Siemens AG is playing a leading role in helping to develop
China's 3G standard, called TD-SCDMA. International Business Machines
Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Philips Electronics NV all joined the Chinese
group that announced the new way to compress audio and video signals into
digital form.
China is following a path previously trod by others. Technical standards
vary around the world because different countries backed the competing
technical designs of local companies. As a result, European televisions
and cellphones work on different standards than U.S. ones do. "China is
just following what everyone else does," says Stephen Wong, chairman of
Skyworth Digital Holdings Ltd., one of China's largest TV makers.
Even so, China is reluctant to adopt a standard that would end up
preventing its consumers and manufacturers from adopting a better or
cheaper technology used elsewhere. In 3G, for example, China's
wireless-service providers would like to use a standard that already has
been adopted in Europe, called WCDMA.
"It would be more cost effective," says Jacky S.L. Yung, assistant chief
financial officer of China Mobile Ltd., the country's leading
wireless-service operator. China's homegrown TD-SCDMA, "might be a good
complement or supplement."
In fact, the country's telecommunications regulator is expected to decide
in favor of using two 3G technical standards, just as it has permitted two
systems for the current generation of mobile phones.
However, in other areas, China is looking to set the standard even beyond
its own borders by licensing its standard at a lower cost to competitors.
The Beijing-based Audio-Video Coding Standards, or AVS, group aims to
publish a standard by the end of the year that will compete with MPEG-4,
the next generation of the standard used in DVD players, video games and
the Internet. Engineers in China began working on it a year ago after the
licensors of MPEG-4 met resistance when they created a complex and
potentially costly royalty scheme.
The AVS group instead is proposing charging only a few cents per device,
paid by manufacturers, to use its standard. "The key thing is not the
licensing fee but the combination of high performance, low complexity and
low cost," says Gao Wen, who is leading the AVS group.
But the group isn't alone in offering an alternative to MPEG-4. Microsoft
has its own method for encoding and decoding audio and video signals,
called Windows Media, and also is touting a simple license. And the MPEG
licensors are working on a version of MPEG-4 that may forgo the per-use
fees.
The AVS group's work "is one more force in that direction, but the market
force is already enormous," says Rob Koenen, chairman of the MPEG-4
Industry Forum, a group that promotes MPEG standards.
Write to Evan Ramstad at evan.ramstad@wsj.com1
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB106261084448432900,00.html
Chinese Academy of Science’s Prof. & Chief Scientist, Institute of Computing Technology, Wen Gao: “World Standards Will Come from China”. . . p. 226
The Audio Video coding Standard (AVS) is being closely watched by equipment manufacturers.
Why? Because it is China, which boasts an enormous market, playing a central role in designing this specification that involves video compression. Applications of AVS broadly range from broadcasting and optical disks to mobile phones.
The first step is to work towards practical application in digital satellite broadcasting by 2005. Dr. Wen Gao, a key figure behind the standard’s design, explains why AVS came about.
http://ne.nikkeibp.co.jp/ July 19 2004 Issue
China Will Keep Pursuing Digital Standards
Kathy Chen. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Apr 23, 2004. pg. B.1
Beijing -- CHINA MAY HAVE caved on one effort to set unique digital standards, but it is moving ahead with efforts to influence global technology in other areas, from cellphones to video-compression technology to inventory-tracking tags.
Facing anger from companies including Intel Corp. and pressure from the U.S. government, China agreed Wednesday to indefinitely shelve a home-grown wireless-encryption standard that would have been mandatory for all vendors of Wi-Fi technology in China by June 1. But Beijing said it would continue to work with international bodies to set global standards, and some policy makers say China could continue to push the wireless encryption standard through such bodies.
The dispute shows how China, propelled by nationalist pride and a desire to decrease reliance on foreign technology, is shaking up the global standards game. Its push to set technical standards is sending an unsettling message to U.S. companies: In a world moving toward globalization, the rules are sometimes set elsewhere. China's new assertiveness is of special concern because it is both the world's factory floor and its biggest market.
China is saying "if you want access to my market, you have to use my standards," says Chen Yuping, a director at a Ministry of Information Industry's research institute. Adds high-tech consultant Fang Xingdong: China's huge market "is ours, but we've been passive, not proactive. To negotiate with the other side, we need our own cards to play. Standards are China's cards."
Technical standards ensure that, say, a CD bought in one country can be played on a CD player made in another. Standards typically are set by groups of manufacturers or, increasingly, by international organizations. If China enforces its own standards, companies would need to make special versions of products to sell in the Chinese market, adding cost and complexity.
China is a latecomer to the standards game. Traditionally, it has held relatively few patents of its own, and so often has had to pay high royalties to use components and software developed by others. Having its own standards could strengthen China's hand when negotiating royalties or technology transfers. The strategy also could allow China to claim early ownership of an emerging technology and give its industries a head start over foreign rivals.
The drive to influence global standards has opened up a heated internal debate in China, underscored by Beijing's 11th hour reversal over the encryption standard.
Policy makers say China is drafting a number of other compulsory standards in the name of security, including for routers, which direct traffic on the Internet; and other Internet-related hardware and software, to deter hackers and address other security concerns. Some foreign companies worry that security concerns could provide a cover for trade barriers. "We hope national security issues will be dealt with in narrow, confined ways," says Jim Gradoville, head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing.
Other parts of China's bureaucracy are taking a more open and flexible approach in setting standards. In 2003, China was poised to introduce its own national product-code system to track inventory, but backed off when it found out about a superior technology, radio frequency identification tagging, or RFID, with which it was possibly incompatible. Beijing's decision to return to the drawing board wasn't popular in many circles in China.
"There are lots of industries where China's market is leading, like cellphones and DVDs," says Anne Stevenson-Yang, head of the Beijing office of the U.S. Information Technology Office, a Washington-based industry group. "It's natural for Chinese companies to emerge as leaders in setting standards in those areas. But you want to do it through inducement, not dictate, or you'll cut off your companies from export markets, international customers and collaboration in technology."
China's growing importance as a market and manufacturer is driving its efforts to influence global standards for RFID. The promising technology transfers small bundles of information embedded in product tags to special wireless readers, and is being adopted by companies like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to track inventory. Global players have been working on RFID standards, but China envisions a role for itself, too. A working group set up by the government is in talks with two dozen multinationals to define an RFID standard for China, with a pilot project in the works to test globally available technologies and then using the "best of breed" to cobble together a made-for-China standard that would be compatible with other standards.
China hopes to sell another homegrown standard, for video- compression technology, to the rest of the world, touting a superior technology and simple licensing scheme. Currently, the world's most widely used compression technology -- which turns audio and video signals into digital code and is crucial for sending video over the Internet and transmitting high-definition TV -- is MPEG, created by an international group called the Moving Picture Experts Group.
Gao Wen, an urbane computer scientist who has led China's delegation to MPEG since 1997, saw an opportunity for China. He spoke up at a monthly brainstorming session of scientists outside Beijing in March 2002, arguing that "China needs to have its own [compression] standard." Recalls Mr. Gao: "We felt that we could do this because the market is so big and the manufacturers are all here."
Mr. Gao says the Chinese standard, created with the help of multinationals like Microsoft Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc., is not only technically superior to the latest version of MPEG, called MPEG- 4, but also offers a better licensing deal. While manufacturers that want to license MPEG-4 must negotiate fees separately with each patent holder, the Chinese standard, Audio Video Coding Standard, or AVS, require licensors to deal with just one licensing body.
Partnerships with foreign companies to set standards offer benefits for both China, which can grab onto new technology, and the companies, which can gain an entree into its huge market. "Nokia would like to help China develop any global standards," says Ma Jian, a manager at Nokia China R&D Center of Nokia Corp.; the Finnish company already is working with China to develop a standard for the next-generation Internet.
China's decision to indefinitely shelve the controversial wireless- encryption standard took even industry insiders by surprise. The about-turn, announced in Washington by visiting Vice Premier Wu Yi, was a decision made at the top and appears at least in part based on the realization that China's compulsory approach was out of step with international practices. "China needs to consider its national character, but also how it could work more happily with the international community," says the Ministry of Information Industry's Mr. Chen.
In some ways, the process underscores the inevitably bumpy learning process that China is undergoing as it seeks to take a more active role in defining global standards. "This isn't the last you'll ever hear of this debate" over whether China should use standards as a power game or work more closely with international bodies, says USITO's Ms. Stevenson-Yang.
In the city of Xian at Xidian University, where the encryption standard was born, the debate continues. "If we just adopt other people's standards, we're just giving them money and turning into a follower," sniffs Liu Shuaihong, a 28-year-old electronics graduate student. "Why should we always follow other countries' standards when we can design our own?"
---
Technical Competition
China hopes to influence world standards for digital technology. Among
the areas it is targeting:
-- RFID: Made-for-China standard to govern radio frequency identification
tagging technology that would be compatible with global standards.
-- AVS: Digital-compression technology standard that offers an alternative
to the global MPEG-4 standard.
-- 3G: A third-generation cellphone that is vying with standards set by
Europe and Qualcomm of the U.S.
-- EVD: An enhanced video-disc standard that China is promoting as a
next-generation DVD system.
Open Standard and impact to the industry in China
Wen Gao, Ph.D
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Talking outline
Goal of standardization
Movement of current patent pool
Rebuilding a bridge between standardization and industry
Open standard impact to China
Goal of standardization
Handiwork vs machine manufacture
Any product has a chain in processing, from material, parts, technics, installation, …
If some parts in that chain controlled (can be taken) by few skill people, it is hard to make large volume/low price production, it is a handcraft production
For enable machine manufacture, standard and professional machine/workers are required
Goal of standardization(cnt)
Standardization is try to make mass production with good quality and low price
Easy to produce
Easy to package
Easy to install
Easy to change
Easy to test
Easy to cost down
Not control by few people/process
Parallel engineering
Enable parallel engineering
Click to add text
Movement of current patent pool
Before understanding current situation, we need look back the patent pool
Patent pool
A patent pool is an agreement between two or more patent owners to license one or more of their patents to one another or third parties
Advantage of patent pool
Reduce transaction fees to obtain technology
Reduce the probability of litigation
Features of a patent pool
A technology standard that is definite and well defined
An evaluator/independent expert to determine which patents are essential, thereby defining a group of EPHs(essential patent holders)
A license drafted and approved by EPHs to allow to license technology on reasonable and nondiscriminatory basis
A patent pool administrator appointed by EPHs handle the administrative tasks
EPHs retaining the right to license the patents outside of the patent pool
History of patent pool
Phase I: 1856-1923, manufacture driven
In 1856, Sewing Machine Combination in US formed a patent pool for sewing machine manufactures
In 1917, a committee organized by Assistant Secretary of Navy, formed an aircraft patent pool for almost all aircraft manufactures in US
Phase II: 1924-2001, standardization driven
In 1924, Radio Corporation of America (early name: Associated Radio Manufactures), merged the interest of multiply companies, leading to the establishment for standardization of radio parts, airways frequency allocation, and TV transmission standard
In 1997, MPEG LA formed MPEG-2 patent pool, approved by DoJ
In 1998, Sony etc formed 3C patent pool for DVD
In 1999, Toshiba etc formed 6C patent pool for DVD
Phase III: date-, standardization & industry parallel driven
AVS starts to form AVS patent pool, by an interest group they are willing to promote technology thru mass production with low price license fees
DMP?
Difference between phase II and III?
Phase II
Standard group is separated from patent pool group
Standard group is hard to decide a technology should be adopted or reject, in term of simple licensing
It is easy to block the usage of standard, unless agree to charge a high license fees
Phase III
Standard group is connected with patent pool group
Standard group can decide to adopt or reject or around or avoid some technology, for making simple
It is hard to block the usage of standard if blocking patent owners all in pool
Voluntary Patent Pool vs Non-Voluntary Patent Pool
Are all patent pool should be voluntary patent pool?
No
US aircraft patent pool
Aids medicine patent pool?
Have you found any patent of nuclear technology in US?
Category of patent holders by intention
Use patent to promote new technology, =>partnership
Big companies who make product
Universities and research institutes who grant by government
Basis of AVS working group
Use patent to make money, =>around/avoid
Pay attention to not infringe their patents
Use patent to protect itself, =>friendship
work with
Problem of current patent pool
A worst case by DVD IP happening
In 2002, a DVD device cost 30$ in China major manufacture
They are asked to charge 19.5$ for IP using, later on into 9.5$
They got order in price of 30$ from US and EU sale channel
They could make balance either pay non-IP or get export-tax return from Chinese government
In 2004, a DVD device cost 20$ in China major manufacture
They are still asked to pay 9.5$ for IP
They are hunted by IP LA company
They decide to away from DVD manufacture
From now, DVD will manufacture by either major EC company(=expensive), or small company in China(=no quality guarantee)
Problem of current patent pool(cn’t)
Should manufacture pay the license?
No, consumer should pay
In above case, why Chinese manufacture pay usage fee for US/EU consumer?
In case manufacture pay, there should be a mechanism to refund that from consumer
Could license fee allow that high?
In 2002, 19.5$/(30+19.5)$=39%
In 2004, 9.5$/(20+9.5)$=32%
It is much higher (5-6 times) than the normal margin of major manufactures
Conclusion
The mechanism of license fee collection is not correct in practice
This mechanism hurt manufacture industry and then finally hurt consumers
It needs to be redesigned
Problem of current patent pool(cn’t)
What is wrong of MPEG-LA pool
The price is too high, comparing with the device cost
Charge to wrong group
Should do to end user
Or do to chip industry and software industry
Can current PLA body have capability to solve the problem?
Also not, reason?
Two separated steps
Make the standard first
Then create a patent pool
After standard fixed, there is a only way to go, determine the license term by all essential patent holder
The worst case is, some of patent holders what to use their patent to make big money, no matter how industry and customs feeling
It is very hard to change from their current way
How to balance between patent holder and consumers
It must give return to patent holder, for engaging continuous innovation
But we must protect manufacture to engage them to make more good and cheap product, to benefit consumers
How to do that?
Reasonable price and term
Right location to charge
Rebuilding a bridge between standardization and industry
Rethink the goal of standardization
Not for making money=>can do in not-profit-organization?
Don’t want to create a bottleneck controlled by someone
Making good quality and low price product to benefit consumers
A case study for new bridge
AVS activity in China
Audio Video coding Standard
Make a simple and low-cost industry standard
Use as more as we can the parts from MPEG, avoid/around disagreement for IPR policy
Co-design on both technology and IP
One-stop-shopping license
Integration of blocking technology from partners
Overview of AVS 1.0 Video
High-efficiency coding
Focused application – initially HDTV
Lower complexity, lower cost
Complete solution:
Video, audio, systems, DRM
This paper concerns video coding
Simple, comprehensive patent licensing
Open standard Impact to China
Organization of standard in China
SAC(Standardization administration of China)
Information standardization committees
AVS Working group
…
Open standard Impact to China(cn’t)
AVS, is a model learning by other standard working groups
Open standard
IPR policy
Manufacture following
Government support
State Commission of Development and reforming
Ministry of Information Industry
Ministry of Science and Technology
Standardization Administration of China
State Administration of Radio Film and Television
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Summery
Bridge?
Design standard and practical IPR policy in same time
Educate people to return the basic principle of standardization
Balance carefully between patent holder and industry
AVS
www.avs.org.cn/en
More info?
Email: wgao@jdl.ac.cn
http://www.jdl.ac.cn
Questions?
Click to add sub-title
Thanks
Click to add sub-title
China Sees a New Way To Steer Tech Market:Touting Own Standards 2004-04-23 The Wall Street Journal Excerpt: 1.ãShanghai's Fudan University is providing key technology to the EPC effort, but Chinese policy makers envision a bigger role for China. A working group set up by the government is in talks with two dozen multinationals to define an RFID standard for China, with a pilot project in the works to test globally available technologies by tracking inventory from Chinese factories to warehouses in the U.S. and Europe, and then cherry-picking parts of different technologies to cobble together a made-for-China standard. Edward Zeng, a member of the working group who runs Beijing-based business-to-business trading company Sparkice Inc., says he believes that eventually, several countries, including China, the U.S. and Japan, could emerge with their own local standards that would be able to talk to each other. "China is the new economic co-driver and manufacturing center of the world," Mr. Zeng says. "We're not setting the global standard, but we'll at least become a co-setter of global RFID standards."... Standard  What  Who  Foreign Involvement WI-fi Encryption  Compulsory security standard to be applied to all wi-fi products sold in China,originally effective June 1 but now shelved indefinitely  Xidian University Iwncomm and other Chinese institutions and companies  Minimal RFID  Made-for-China standard to govern radio-frequency identification-tagging technology that would be compatible with global standards  Sparkice, government-sponsored working committee  In talks with multinationals to test "best of breed" technologies AVS  Compression technology standard that offers an alternative to the global MPEG-4 standard  Eighty-odd companies and institutions, led by Chinese Academy of Sciences computing-technology institute  Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Sony, Panasonic, Nokia, among others, contributed know-how 3G  China's third-generation mobile standard that is vying with standards set by Europe and U.S. Qualcomm  Chinese Academy of Telecommunications Technology  Siemens tamed up with Chinese researchers to develop TD-SCDMA technology EVD  An enhanced video disc standard that China is promoting as a next-generation DVD system  E-World Technology  New York's On2 Technologies provided a chip central to the standard  2.ãOther parts of China's bureaucracy are taking a more open and flexible approach in setting standards. In 2003, China was poised to introduce its own national product-code system, but decided to shelve implementation when it found out from the Internet and through foreign partners about the RFID technology, which was more sophisticated than, and possibly incompatible with, its planned system. Beijing's decision to return to the drawing board wasn't popular in many circles in China, with conservatives arguing that China should push ahead with its own system and others saying it should simply adopt the international standard. Mr. Zeng, the China RFID group member, says he personally lobbied three government ministers to take a middle road. "We could become nationalistic and self-centered and isolate ourselves, or we could...become an RFID colony," he says. "I said we should have compatibility with the international standard while having our national intellectual property." Mr. Zeng's office is a testament to his philosophy. Hanging on one wall are three diagrams identifying existing and potential leaders in both RFID software and hardware around the world. Pointing to one featuring colorful concentric circles labeled with the logos of international companies, he says he updates it each week, "so we know which companies are driving the stuff and which companies could be players because they have useful technology."... Full Text: XIAN, China -- In 2001, a group of researchers in this ancient city quietly embarked on a project to better protect wireless Internet systems from potential hackers. Their effort was little-noticed by the outside world, but it received a surprising amount of attention at home: Jiang Zemin, then China Communist Party chief, personally visited Xian to inspect the equipment being developed by the research team. In July 2003, high-ranking officials flocked to a news conference held by the researchers in an exclusive state guesthouse in Beijing to unveil their home-grown data-protection process. State television played up the news, and several months later, authorities ordered all Chinese and foreign vendors of Wi-Fi, or wireless fidelity, products in China to conform to the new standard by this June. Intel Corp. said it could be forced to stop selling some computer chips in China because it couldn't meet the deadline. Nokia Corp. said it also wouldn't sell a new phone model because it used Wi-Fi technology incompatible with the new Chinese standard. For China, the development marked a watershed. Even while Beijing has cited security concerns as the reason for enforcing its own wireless-encryption standard, it, in fact, represents the first volley in an ambitious, new stratagem: As China becomes an increasingly important player in global trade and diplomacy, it is also pushing its own technical standards on a wide range of fronts, affecting products from third-generation wireless phones to compression technology to inventory-tracking tags to Internet-related software. Facing anger from companies like Intel and Nokia and pressure from the U.S. government, China agreed on Wednesday to indefinitely shelve the home-grown encryption standard. But it said it would continue to work with international bodies to set global standards, and some policy makers in China suggest the country could present the encryption standard to one such body with the aim of pushing it as the global standard. Unsettling Message The dispute over the encryption standard shows how China, propelled by nationalist pride and a desire to decrease reliance on foreign technology and level the playing field with foreign rivals, is shaking up the global standards game. And its push to set its own technical standards is sending an unsettling message to U.S. companies: In a world moving toward globalization of production and trade, the rules are sometimes set elsewhere. The European Union now affects corporate strategies as it sets rules on everything from genetically engineered crops to antitrust issues. China's new assertiveness is of special concern because the nation is both the world's factory floor and the world's biggest market. China is saying, "If you want access to my market, you have to use my standards," says Chen Yuping, a director at the Ministry of Information Industry's research institute in Beijing. Adds Fang Xingdong, a high-tech consultant: China's huge market "is ours, but we've been passive, not proactive. To negotiate with the other side, we need our own cards to play. Standards are China's cards." China is a latecomer to the standards game. Traditionally, it has held relatively few patents of its own, and so often has had to pay high royalties to use components and software developed by others. Having its own standards can strengthen China's hand when negotiating royalties or technology transfers. The strategy also allows China to claim early ownership of an emerging technology and gives domestic industries a head start over foreign rivals in the marketplace. The ramifications of China's standards strategy ultimately could sweep across many industries and affect companies around the world. Some foreign companies fear that other countries could follow China's lead and try and set their own standards, slowing global high-tech development. "It could definitely have a snowball effect," says Frank Ferro, director of Agere Systems Inc., a U.S.-based maker of chips used in communication equipment. "There are lots of industries where China's market is leading, like cellphones and DVDs," says Anne Stevenson-Yang, head of the Beijing office of the U.S. Information Technology Office, a Washington-based industry group. "It's natural for Chinese companies to emerge as leaders in setting standards in those areas. But you want to do it through inducement, not dictate, or you'll cut off your companies from export markets, international customers and collaboration in technology." Bigger Role Desired China's growing importance as market and manufacturing base is driving its efforts to influence global standards for radio frequency identification tagging, or RFID, which is a more upscale version of bar codes. The promising new technology transfers small bundles of information embedded in products to special wireless readers. The technology is being adopted by companies like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to track inventory. China's efforts to develop its own RFID standard are taking place alongside similar efforts by global players, including the Electronic Product Code group, which is owned by EPCglobal, a joint venture of Europe's EAN International Inc. and the Uniform Code Council of the U.S., manager of the bar-code system. TECHNICAL COMPETITION China hopes to influence world standards for digital technology. Among the areas it is targeting: ? Rfid: Made-for-China standard to govern radio frequency identification tagging technology that would be compatible with global standards. ? Avs: Digital-compression technology standard that offers an alternative to the global MPEG-4 standard. ? 3G: A third-generation cellphone that is vying with standards set by Europe and Qualcomm of the U.S. ? Evd: An enhanced video-disc standard that China is promoting as a next-generation DVD system. Shanghai's Fudan University is providing key technology to the EPC effort, but Chinese policy makers envision a bigger role for China. A working group set up by the government is in talks with two dozen multinationals to define an RFID standard for China, with a pilot project in the works to test globally available technologies by tracking inventory from Chinese factories to warehouses in the U.S. and Europe, and then cherry-picking parts of different technologies to cobble together a made-for-China standard. Edward Zeng, a member of the working group who runs Beijing-based business-to-business trading company Sparkice Inc., says he believes that eventually, several countries, including China, the U.S. and Japan, could emerge with their own local standards that would be able to talk to each other. "China is the new economic co-driver and manufacturing center of the world," Mr. Zeng says. "We're not setting the global standard, but we'll at least become a co-setter of global RFID standards." China hopes to sell another home-grown standard, for video-compression technology, to the rest of the world, touting a superior technology and simple licensing system. Currently, the world's most widely used compression technology -- which turns audio and visual signals into digital ones and is crucial for Internet data-streaming and high-definition digital television -- is MPEG-2, although the Los Angeles-based MPEG working group has rolled out a newer version, MPEG-4, that hasn't seen widespread adoption by broadcasters because of its onerous licensing terms. 'A More Urgent Matter' Gao Wen saw an opportunity for China. The urbane computer scientist with a penchant for designer polo shirts has led China's delegation to MPEG forums since 1997. He spoke up at a monthly brainstorming session of scientists at a mountain hotel outside Beijing in March 2002. The billed topic was how China could promote the media-streaming industry by strengthening copyright protection. But Mr. Gao argued that "we have a more urgent matter to talk about: China needs to have its own [compression] standard." Recalls Mr. Gao: "We felt that we could do this because the market is so big and the manufacturers are all here." Mr. Gao says the Chinese standard, created with the help of multinationals like Microsoft Corp., Cisco Systems Inc. and Nokia, is not only technically superior to MPEG-4, but also offers a better licensing deal. Manufacturers that want to license MPEG-4 must negotiate fees separately with each patent holder, a potential problem for China's mostly smaller manufacturers, which lack the financial resources and personnel to undertake such negotiations. The Chinese standard, Audio Video Coding Standard, or AVS, in contrast, offers "one-stop shopping," with licensors required to deal with one licensing body, Mr. Gao says. To help jump-start the industry in China, he says, the group plans to initially charge a royalty fee of just one yuan, or about 12 U.S. cents. Beijing's standards ambitions don't necessarily mean bad news for foreign companies. Many are eager to partner with China since such alliances can benefit both sides: China can grab onto new technology to advance itself, just as Japan and South Korea have done in the past, while foreign companies gain access into China's huge market. Nokia, for one, is already working with China to develop a standard for the next-generation Internet, which will have a much bigger capacity for IP addresses than the current generation Internet, among other qualities. "Nokia would like to help China develop any global standards," says Ma Jian, a manager at Nokia's research center in China. The push to influence global standards has opened up an internal debate in China with strong nationalistic and national security overtones. For many Chinese, the issue has become one of nationalist pride, not technical merit. "Why should we comply with those standards made by Americans?" argued one online poster during a recent bulletin-board discussion about the wireless encryption standard. "In their eyes, American domination is the most reasonable standard." At a meeting in Xian last fall between the Xian standards group and global players including Intel and Cisco, one Chinese executive charged the U.S. side with being "hegemonist," recalls an attendee. According to policy makers and industry executives, China is drafting a number of other compulsory standards in the name of security, including for routers, digital switches and other Internet related hardware and software. Mr. Chen of the Ministry of Information Industry says the aim is to deter hackers and address other security concerns. But some foreign companies worry that security concerns could provide a cover for trade barriers. "We hope national-security issues will be dealt with in narrow, confined ways," says Jim Gradoville, head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing. Other parts of China's bureaucracy are taking a more open and flexible approach in setting standards. In 2003, China was poised to introduce its own national product-code system, but decided to shelve implementation when it found out from the Internet and through foreign partners about the RFID technology, which was more sophisticated than, and possibly incompatible with, its planned system. Beijing's decision to return to the drawing board wasn't popular in many circles in China, with conservatives arguing that China should push ahead with its own system and others saying it should simply adopt the international standard. Mr. Zeng, the China RFID group member, says he personally lobbied three government ministers to take a middle road. "We could become nationalistic and self-centered and isolate ourselves, or we could...become an RFID colony," he says. "I said we should have compatibility with the international standard while having our national intellectual property." Mr. Zeng's office is a testament to his philosophy. Hanging on one wall are three diagrams identifying existing and potential leaders in both RFID software and hardware around the world. Pointing to one featuring colorful concentric circles labeled with the logos of international companies, he says he updates it each week, "so we know which companies are driving the stuff and which companies could be players because they have useful technology." Surprising Backlash The Xian group that created the wireless encryption standard appears to have fallen into the conservative camp. But neither it nor Chinese policy makers expected the backlash that its work generated. Since the 1990s, Li Jiandong, head of Xidian University's communications engineering school in Xian, had been researching Wi-Fi technology on Xidian's placid, leafy campus. In 2001, as the technology was taking on wider commercial applications around the world and after a high-profile hacker case in Japan cast doubt on Wi-Fi security, Mr. Li and executives at a Xidian-invested technology company, China Iwncomm Co., saw an opportunity. "They felt the time was mature to bring together a lot of research organizations to put together an [encryption] standard," recalls a Xian group member. Their timing was fortuitous. Chinese policy makers were just reaching a consensus that their efforts to swap market access for foreign technology wasn't working, and that they needed a new strategy to secure foreign know-how. Meanwhile, Chinese manufacturers of DVD players were embroiled in a widening spat for failure to pay royalties to foreign patent holders that culminated in January 2002 with the seizure of thousands of Chinese-made DVD players by European customs agents. The Chinese companies eventually agreed to pay royalties, but the incident, and the high amounts the companies were asked to pay, drove home to Beijing the crucial role that standards play in global trade. The Xian group quickly won the go-ahead from the Ministry of Information Industry to design a new wireless encryption standard. Located in central China far from the eastern coast, where most foreign companies are concentrated, the Xian group is believed by some foreign industry executives to have ties to China's military and security apparatus. Xidian is a former military-run university, and like many companies in Xian, Iwncomm sells equipment to the military. Its general manager, Cao Jun, declined at a recent news conference to provide any details on his education or previous job experience. A main backer of the Xian group has been the State Encryption Management Commission, a conservative interagency group whose members include the state security arms of the government. People close to the group, which later grew to include institutions from other parts of the country, say it was open to foreign input on how to draft the standard and that it issued several public updates on its progress, including to visiting Intel executives, but that foreign companies showed little interest. Intel executives declined to comment, but other U.S. industry executives disagree. They say their efforts to learn more about the standard in mid-2003 met with obfuscation from the Xian group and regulators. China declined to make the encryption codes public, making it impossible for foreign companies to ascertain whether the version is better or worse than ones used elsewhere in the world. Both Agere, the U.S. chip maker, and Texas Instruments Inc. say the parts of the Chinese system that have been made public aren't as secure as the existing one. More worrisome was China's requirement that foreign vendors cooperate with two dozen Chinese companies to obtain the encryption technology, potentially forcing the foreign companies to share technology and business secrets with Chinese rivals. China's 11th-hour decision to indefinitely shelve the controversial encryption standard took even industry insiders by surprise. The about-face, announced in Washington on Wednesday by visiting Vice Premier Wu Yi, a widely respected former trade minister, was a decision made but top leaders, say people familiar with the situation. It appears at least in part based on the realization that the Xian group's approach is out of step with international practices, in which industry groups coalesce around certain standards and then apply to international bodies for approval. "The thinking was that China needs to consider its national character, but also how it could work more happily with the international community," says the Ministry of Information Industry's Mr. Chen. He predicts China will try and get the wireless encryption standard accepted as a global standard through the IEEE, a global Wi-Fi standards body. Even before the announcement, some policy makers and Chinese companies were grumbling about the Xian group's approach. "To ensure our own interests, perhaps we didn't do thorough negotiations with the international community," allowed Zhang Weihua, an official of the National Institute of Standardization, China's main standards research group. In some ways, the process underscores the bumpy learning process that China is undergoing as it seeks to take a more active role in defining global standards. "This isn't the last you'll ever hear of this debate" over whether China should use standards as a power game or work more closely with international bodies, says USITO's Ms. Stevenson-Yang. On the tree-lined Xidian University campus where it all began, the debate continues. "If we just adopt other people's standards, we're just giving them money and turning into a follower," says Liu Shuaihong, a 28-year-old graduate student in electronics. "Why should we always follow other countries' standards when we can design our own?" -- Qiu Haixu and Cui Rong in Beijing contributed to this article. User Agreement / Privacy Policy / Contact Sparkice Tel:+8610 6506 9666 Fax:+8610 65057158 Copyright 1999-2004 Sparkice Inc.All Rights Reserved
Standard bearers of new technology
( 2003-08-06 11:04) (China Daily)
Although Kenji Hidaka has been working on the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) for many years and seen many disputes, he expresses his experiences in just one word: Horrible.
A man chats on his mobile phone in front of a digital-camera advertisement in Shanghai. As they expand abroad, China's electronic producers would face more disputes in intellectual property rights from foreign companies.
The heavy toll on Japanese companies fighting their American counterparts left a bad taste, he told China Daily in an interview.
Hidaka, director of intellectual property rights at Japan External Trade Organization's (JETRO) Beijing Office, said almost every major Japanese company was troubled by IPR issues during the development stage, especially in the 1980s.
In 1982, Fujitsu, the-then biggest computer vendor in Japanese market, was accused by US giant IBM of copyright infringements of its operating system software and user manuals.
In the next six years, Fujitsu fought very hard, but still ended up paying US$833 million for using IBM software.
The Japanese firms learned quickly and became keen enthusiasts in applying for patents.
Six of the top 10 patent owners in the United States last year were Japanese firms; and Japanese electronic giant NEC ranked second only after IBM.
Hidaka warned that Chinese businesses - as they pose more threats to foreign counterparts - would be involved in more disputes with IPRs increasingly used as a weapon.
The Chinese Government, research institutions and businesses have also realized the problem and have embarked on an arduous but optimistic journey to formulate China's own standards and secure more patents.
China's home-made standard for digital television is expected to be ready within this year.
Tide of standard
The most recent effort is to establish China's own audio and video standard (AVS).
Huang Tiejun, secretary-general of the AVS working Group, said last month that his team would submit an industrial standard this year, which may become the national standard in 2004.
He added that the first chip based on the AVS standard will also be out by the year-end, which would enable large-scale production next year.
The AVS standard will mainly be used in audio and video content coding and compression to make it easier for transmission and storage.
Devices like digital television (DTV) sets, multimedia mobile phones and DVD players and discs require such technology. The most popular international standard is currently MPEG2 (moving pictures expert group).
Gao Wen, chairman of the AVS working group, said that the scheme would be based on public technologies and Chinese inventions, so that it would be free from patent claims or royalty demands from foreign organizations; and revealed that his team had registered 58 patents in the field.
Meanwhile, with the start of trial broadcasting of DTV programmes in 30 Chinese cities and Jiangxi, Fujian and Shaanxi provinces in July, the establishment of home-grown digital television standards has become a focal point.
The ownership of home-made standards is regarded as critical for the development of DTV broadcasting, since broadcasting equipment, transmission devices and receivers depend on the standards.
China last year settled on the standard for satellite transmission, but is still working on cable and terrestrial standards.
Wang Kuang, general manager of Hangzhou Science and Technology Co Ltd and head of the development team for the DTV-cable standard, said in an interview last month that the domestic standard would be ready within this year; and have interactive functions, better support for data service and easier use compared with the European DVB-C standard.
Two teams from Beijing-based Tsinghua University and Shanghai Jiaotong University are working on a terrestrial broadcasting standard, which is also expected to be announced by the end of this year, according to Bai Weimin, chief of the broadcasting and television division at the Ministry of Information Industry (MII).
China is also trying to put its home-made third generation (3G) mobile communication standard TD-SCDMA (time division synchronous code division multiple access) into operation, which has been accepted by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) as one of the three international 3G standards together with European-dominated wideband CDMA (WCDMA) and US-led CDMA 2000.
Standards on digital cameras, network collaboration, flat-panel display and other information technologies and products are also being decided.
MII is expected to hold a flat-panel display seminar in Beijing tomorrow to discuss the latest developments in setting up the Chinese standards.
The heavy toll China's DVD player makers pay to foreign intellectual property holders taught many domestic producers the importance of domestic standards and patents. [newsphoto.com.cn]
Royalty payments
The royalties charged by foreign information giants on Chinese DVD player makers last year taught a lesson to domestic firms on the importance of owning their own patents and standards.
Last year, Chinese DVD manufacturers reached agreements with the so-called 6C patent licensing alliance - Hitachi, Matsushita, Toshiba, JVC, Mitsubishi and Time Warner - and the 3C alliance of Phillips, Sony and Pioneer to pay US$4 and US$5 respectively in royalties for every DVD player they export.
As Chinese companies extend to overseas markets, IPRs will become a tool that their foreign competitors will more frequently use to fend them off.
"As Japanese and Chinese companies compete strongly in manufacturing, I believe the patent issue will come more to the fore," said JETRO's Hidaka.
He said some Japanese digital camera makers had expressed their intention of charging royalties on Chinese manufacturers; and Japanese giant Sony and China's biggest computer maker Legend Group were talking about the issue.
Zhao Tianwu, director of the Service Centre of Electronic Intellectual Property at the Ministry of Information Industry and an IPR lawyer, pointed out that the primary goal of royalty claims from Japanese firms would be to stop Chinese makers venturing into overseas markets.
The establishment of industrial standards invented by the Chinese also represents the natural evolution of Chinese enterprises, business executives said.
Zhou Huan, president of Datang Telecom, the major driving force in developing the Chinese-invented 3G standard - TD-SCDMA - is an advocate of this theory.
"There is a rule in the industry: the third-class company sells products, the second-class sells technology, the first-class relies on its brand, but a super-class enterprise sells standards," Zhou said.
China is the largest maker of many IT and electronic products like television sets, DVD players and handsets, but the profits for manufacturers are meagre.
While China supplies 10 million DVD players to the world annually, most DVD makers make only about 100 yuan (US$12) profit per unit and also have to pay US$9 as royalty.
Legend Group, the biggest computer maker in the Asia-Pacific region, also feels the pain of the lack of core technologies.
The company united major TV set makers Konka, Hisense, TCL and Great Wall Computer Group to form the information gateway resource sharing (IGRS) working group in Beijing on July 16.
Sun Yuping, vice-president of the Legend Research Academy and chief of the IGRS working group, said that the aim is to develop an IGRS protocol, which enables automatic detection, automatic networking, and resource sharing and collaboration among IT devices, home appliances and communication devices in both wired and wireless modes.
The IGRS group has set a goal of formulating a draft of the standard in one year, launch development tools in the second year and come up with a comprehensive version in 2005.
At the same time, Legend Group is also a participant in the Digital Home Working Group (DHWG) established in June by 17 leading global companies including Sony, IBM, Intel, Nokia. DHWG also aims to achieve interoperability of electronic devices at home.
"If we do it now, we have a chance to win, but if we don't, we can only rely on foreign standards and will be controlled by them," said Wang Guixin, a spokesperson for Legend Group.
Another important factor in promoting home-grown standards is the huge economic interests following the establishment of standards.
Zhang Haitao, vice-minister of the State Administration of Film, Radio and Television, said last month that the DTV industry in China would create a huge market worth more than 1 trillion yuan (US$120 billion) including the upgrading of the current broadcasting systems and the spending on DTV sets: 500,000 jobs will be created just to provide DTV cable service.
DTV broadcasting, with its superior picture quality, large transmission capacity and exciting value-added services, is scheduled to cover the whole China by 2010 when the country will cease to use analog TV broadcasting.
Gao Wen, head of the AVS working group, also predicted that having a Chinese-invented AVS standard will save billions of dollars.
The royalty fee on every device using MPEG2 standard is US$2.50. It is estimated that Chinese consumers would buy 400 million units of DTV sets and DVD players in the next 10 years, which means US$1 billion in royalties. However, in the case of the AVS standard, the electronic device makers only need to pay about 1 yuan (US$0.12) per device and AVS members pay even less.
At the same time, China would also consume 300-500 million chips using MPEG2 technology, which would create a huge market worth US$300 billion.
No isolation
However, the enthusiasm to develop Chinese-invented standards and technologies does not mean that the Chinese people would isolate themselves from the world; they will actively seek to co-operate with international partners and integrate with the world's mainstream technologies, scientists and executives said.
Gao Wen with the AVS working group, revealed that although the standard his team is working on is based on open and self-invented technologies, Chinese researchers have contributed more than 20 proposals to the MPEG working group since 1997.
September 2003 - In Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (GSCAS), Professor Gao Wen, Executive Vice President from GSCAS had a report on the researching and developing of Audio Video Coding Standard (AVS) to the President of Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS) Lu Yongxiang. President Lu heard the development course, status quo and the industrialization process on AVS carefully. Next reporting, participants watched the high quality program made with AVS technology.
¡¡¡¡¡°Quicken AVS¡¯ research steps, apply it to industries as soon as possible,¡± President Lu said.
¡¡¡¡¡°In the shortest time, the AVS standard with Chinese independent intellectual property will be applied to practice. That the AVS is used widely to industries such as electronic industry, information industry, and research institutions, will enhance its international competition,¡± said Professor Gao Wen.
¡¡¡¡Other participants including Deng Yong, party committee secretary of GSCAS; Yang Bingxin, head of Science Research Department; Huang Tiejun, director of Digital Media Lab, etc.
LSI Logic's Second-Generation, Single-Chip Processor Addresses Feature-Rich HDD/DVD Recorder Combination Products
- HDD/DVD recorder combo combines DVR and DVD features into a single, compact and affordable consumer product; builds on popularity of DVD player combos
LAS VEGAS, Nev., Consumer Electronics Show, Jan. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- LSI Logic Corporation , a leader in multimedia processing for the Digital Home, today revealed the industry's most comprehensive and feature-rich hard disk drive (HDD)/DVD recorder system processor. The LSI Logic DiMeNsion(TM) 8652 (DMN-8652) is the company's second-generation, high-performance, single-chip device based on the field-proven DoMiNo(TM) architecture. The DMN-8652 is designed to help manufacturers offer combination recorder models by addressing the performance and design requirements needed to enable the increasingly popular features of digital video recorders (DVRs) and DVD recorders.
According to In-Stat/MDR, the combination HDD/DVD recorder total available market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 90% through 2007. "We've seen surprising interest from consumers for combo devices in general, like DVD player/VCR combos. It's easy to see how an HDD/DVD recorder combo, with all of its specialized features, could be even more appealing to consumers," said Michelle Abraham, senior analyst with In-Stat/MDR.
"The HDD/DVD recorder combo expands upon the features of a single-drive DVD recorder by offering consumers features like video library, audio jukebox, video dubbing, and time-shifting of live TV," said Timothy Vehling, senior director of marketing for Consumer AV Products, LSI Logic's Broadband Entertainment Division. "Performing these features well and providing faster-than-real-time video dubbing are key requirements to ensure a positive user experience for this class of products. Manufacturers need to leverage high-performance, single-chip solutions like the DMN-8652 to meet this growing market requirement."
Supporting the same industry-leading integration that made the LSI Logic DMN-8650 the industry's first single-chip, HDD/DVD recorder system processor, the DMN-8652 further integrates a second dedicated ATAPI port, an NTSC/PAL TV encoder, video DACs and a USB controller, and offers the following features:
-- Two independent ATAPI interfaces allowing simultaneous,
hardware-accelerated access to a DVD recorder drive and a hard disk
drive;
-- Concurrent operation of timeshifting (pause, rewind and fast-forward of
live television) while archiving programs from hard disk to DVD;
-- Faster-than-real-time copy, transcode, and transrate operations between
HDD and DVD recordable medium;
-- MPEG-4 video technology playback;
-- State-of-the-art DoMiNoFX(TM) video-processing technologies such as
TrueView(TM) Pro, TrueScan(TM) Pro and PerfectView(R) Pro enable the
highest quality video for DVD recording, playback and archiving;
-- Integrated DV codec with Direct Digital Dub(TM) technology simplifies
the transfer of personal digital content from a camcorder to DVD over
FireWire, with one-touch control via a single remote; and
-- Software compatibility with previous generations of LSI Logic
DoMiNo-based architectures.
Michelle Abraham continued, "The compelling feature set of LSI Logic's HDD/DVD recorder processor combined with their high level of integration will help manufacturers drive competitive prices to facilitate mass consumer adoption of DVD recorder combination products."
LSI Logic's Broadband Entertainment Division provides innovative digital media processing and silicon solutions to industry-leading, worldwide consumer electronics manufacturers. With a complete line of cutting-edge products for DVD, DVR, EVD, video peripheral, digital and HDTV, set-top box, and professional video production/ broadcasting devices, LSI Logic delivers entertainment into and throughout the Digital Home.
Pricing and Availability
The DMN-8652 is available now to qualified customers at less than $28 in high volume.
About LSI Logic Corporation
LSI Logic Corporation is a leading designer and manufacturer of communications, consumer and storage semiconductors for applications that access, interconnect and store data, voice and video. In addition, the company supplies storage network solutions for the enterprise. LSI Logic is headquartered at 1621 Barber Lane, Milpitas, CA 95035 http://www.lsilogic.com/
NOTES TO EDITOR:
1. All LSI Logic news releases (financial, acquisitions, manufacturing,
products, technology etc.) are issued exclusively by PR Newswire and
are immediately thereafter posted on the company's external website,
http://www.lsilogic.com/ .
2. LSI Logic, the LSI Logic logo design, DoMiNo, DiMeNsion, TrueView,
TrueScan, PerfectView, DoMiNoFX and Direct Digital Dub are trademarks
or registered trademarks of LSI Logic Corporation.
3. All other brand or product names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks of their respective companies.
4. Please do not assign a Reader Service number to this release.
CONTACT: Jacqui Gladden of LSI Logic Corporation, +1-408-433-7912, or
jgladden@lsil.com; or Crystal Patriarche of Brodeur Worldwide,
+1-602-808-1162, or cpatriarche@brodeur.com, for LSI Logic Corporation
Web site: http://www.lsilogic.com/
Consumer electronics donning more video apps
Posted : 01 Jan 2004
EE Times' Terry Costlow once wrote "it's hard to go anywhere anymore without seeing a TV, hearing a radio or seeing people with headsets." It sounds like good news for the consumer electronics industry. Driven by the digital lifestyle, consumer electronics has become the key force to push the market growth right after information products. The trend will undoubtedly continue, and with the developments in technology, manufacturers will strive to integrate richer and higher-quality digital concerns into more diversified devices.
Thanks to the DTV revival and the introduction of different types of mixed-signal video encoders and related chips, TV-centric video applications have become the focus of this year's consumer electronics. "This will be the take-off year for video applications as a mature technology. Video capability will certainly be integrated in popular consumer electronics and diversified products," said Jackie Wu, manager for High Performance Analog at Texas Instruments Inc.
DVD player/recorder and HDTV will play crucial roles in the development of consumer electronics this year. Shipment of DVD players will maintain a moderate growth on top of the progress made last year. And DVD-based home theater-in-a-box (HTiB) and portable DVD players will also become the emphasis of R&D as well as a major profit driver for manufacturers. Traditional products will be improved in areas like interfacing functions and audio processing technologies. It is expected that 35 percent of all DVD players will support super-audio CD standard by 2005.
A wider take-up of digital still cameras and readily-available A/V content spurred consumers' demand for DVD recorders. However, the price for the load mechanism of a DVD recorder is still seven times higher than that of traditional DVD players, and a product with a price tag of over $400 is regarded by most consumers as a luxury. Still, the global shipment of DVD recorders reached 4 million last year, mostly to Europe and North America.
Yang Fei, president and director of LSI Logic HK Ltd, said the DVD recorder market in mainland China is expected to take on a good start this quarter, with some models priced under $300, and global shipment to reach 12 million units this year. DVD+RW will be a major format of DVD recorders, which uses flash as the recording media. Meanwhile, hard disk-based DVD recorders will be targeting the Japanese market.
The debut of the D-class audio amplifier has popularized HTiB systems. Combining DVD audio/recorder, radio data system and 6-channel D-class amplifiers in a single box, HTiB simplifies the structure of home entertainment systems. Reduced power consumption and greater reliability are key challenges facing portable DVD designers. Only few manufacturers with strong technical capabilities have successfully developed this product being exported to the United States and Europe. With the drop in the cost of LCD panels and ICs, and automobiles becoming more affordable, the portable DVD player market in China will enjoy rapid growth in telematics.
TV-on-phone
In addition to the anticipated growth of STBs as well as LCD and PDP TVs, various portable devices like cellphones, PDAs and laptops capable of receiving TV programs will become popular.
In Japan, for instance, telecom operators are now offering TV-on-phone services to attract consumers and intensify 3G applications. Though the offering is still far from being a hit, many manufacturers have planned to follow suit. TV cellphones are also expected to be seen in Taiwan and Korea. Following the trend, some PDA OEMs will also introduce modules for watching TV on handhelds and laptops.
TI's Wu said that many Chinese laptop manufacturers have already designed small-sized USB self-powered TV STBs, or have even used PCMCIA TV cards to add TV reception functionality to laptops easily. To improve the entertainment function on laptops, the application of USB TV set-top boxes will develop rapidly, which could spark fierce competition among manufacturers.
China DTV standard soon
The wide adoption of DVD players and the availability of digital CATV broadcasting in China will speed up the popularization of DTV in the mainland. To date, trial DTV broadcasting has been launched in 25 cities in China, indicating that the A/D shift has already taken off in the country. According to the Chinese State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) road map, commercial DTV broadcasting will begin by 2005, and nationwide analog TV broadcasting will be switched off by 2015.
However, DTV broadcasting is predominantly based on the DVB standard from Europe. China's own DTV standard has yet to emerge, which had been scheduled for launch last year, but was postponed due to unsatisfactory trial results. Homegrown standards under discussion include DMB-T and ADTB-T and sources say the SARFT has worked out a new solution based on multi-carrier technologies to speed up the development of a DTV standard. China is expected to announce its own DTV standard this year, becoming the fourth country to have a proprietary DTV technology.
According to Liu Quaneng, group leader for R&D of the DTV functionality and performance standard, the concept of HDTV is confusing, and that a precise definition for HDTV should be worked out to standardize the market. He said that the standard for HDTV display has been worked out and submitted, and is expected to be released before the announcement of the DTV transmission standard.
As display technology moves on into the high-definition realm, high-speed data flow based on MPEG-2 and MP@HL has also presented new challenges for network bandwidth and data storage. While MPEG-4 evolves from the present handheld device to digital cameras and DVD players, the new H.264 specification has also grabbed attention with the AV-condensed chip with video encoder.
Steven Hsieh, industry analyst at IEK of ITRI, says that the H.264 specification is highlighted because it not only complies with MPEG-4, but it also provides higher bandwidth for some cable or satellite (broadcast/TV) businesses. This effectively solves the narrow bandwidth of MPEG-4 compared with MPEG-2. More importantly, H.264 may be backward compatible with MPEG-2. Many alternative technologies have emerged worldwide, in which H.264, MPEG-4 and China's soon-to-be-released application visualization system (AVS) standard are very competitive.
Hsieh thinks that because of the high licensing fee and insufficient infrastructure of MPEG-4, companies are afraid to go into that business. After the H.264 specification is finalized, companies like LSI Logic, Sand Video, Envivio and UBVideo may come up with related products this year. Meanwhile, driven by the developments in DTV space, H.264 is compelling to have more extensive applications next year. However, MPEG-2 will continue to be a mainstream standard for a long time.
LSI Logic's Yang said that the typical industrialization cycle for a new standard is two years, and it is unlikely for AVS and H.264 to complete this cycle before 2005. Up to now the MPEG-4 standard has gained support from some DVD solution providers and AVS is expected to become a video-signal encoding standard in China. Meanwhile, the introduction of the enhanced versatile disc (EVD) standard, which is the first global HDTV disc standard, will lead to a shakeout in the DVD industry. Sources expect shipment of EVD-based products in China to exceed 1 million in 2004 and rise to over 10 million in 2005.
Year of standardization
Digital consumer electronics - riding on digital convergence - is getting hooked to networks through organic links with hardware, software, content and services, regardless of the type of media and device. However, consumer electronics face incompatibility between technologies due to the confusing existence of the underlying methods and standards, as well as the lack of compatibility with each other.
"Specialized network technologies are being developed according to the methods preferred by developers. But due to the clash of interests standardization is not being done well," said Jung Kwang-Mo, managerial researcher of the ubiquitous computing research center at the Korea Electronics Technology Institute.
To ensure the compatibility among digital consumer electronics and promote the home network market, 17 consumer electronics companies including Sony, Intel and Samsung formed the Digital Home Working Group. The group aims not to develop a new international standard of technologies, but to introduce existing technologies that will enable digital consumer electronics to make faster inroads.
The year 2004 is expected to see the establishment of standards for the digital consumer electronics environment and related products. Through a variety of digital convergence between networks, data, devices and services of different types, digital consumer electronics will fuse with ubiquitous technologies to evolve into a new type of smart information appliance networks.
- Major Lee and Laker Pu
Electronic Engineering Times - China
Consumer electronics donning more video apps
Posted : 01 Jan 2004
EE Times' Terry Costlow once wrote "it's hard to go anywhere anymore without seeing a TV, hearing a radio or seeing people with headsets." It sounds like good news for the consumer electronics industry. Driven by the digital lifestyle, consumer electronics has become the key force to push the market growth right after information products. The trend will undoubtedly continue, and with the developments in technology, manufacturers will strive to integrate richer and higher-quality digital concerns into more diversified devices.
Thanks to the DTV revival and the introduction of different types of mixed-signal video encoders and related chips, TV-centric video applications have become the focus of this year's consumer electronics. "This will be the take-off year for video applications as a mature technology. Video capability will certainly be integrated in popular consumer electronics and diversified products," said Jackie Wu, manager for High Performance Analog at Texas Instruments Inc.
DVD player/recorder and HDTV will play crucial roles in the development of consumer electronics this year. Shipment of DVD players will maintain a moderate growth on top of the progress made last year. And DVD-based home theater-in-a-box (HTiB) and portable DVD players will also become the emphasis of R&D as well as a major profit driver for manufacturers. Traditional products will be improved in areas like interfacing functions and audio processing technologies. It is expected that 35 percent of all DVD players will support super-audio CD standard by 2005.
A wider take-up of digital still cameras and readily-available A/V content spurred consumers' demand for DVD recorders. However, the price for the load mechanism of a DVD recorder is still seven times higher than that of traditional DVD players, and a product with a price tag of over $400 is regarded by most consumers as a luxury. Still, the global shipment of DVD recorders reached 4 million last year, mostly to Europe and North America.
Yang Fei, president and director of LSI Logic HK Ltd, said the DVD recorder market in mainland China is expected to take on a good start this quarter, with some models priced under $300, and global shipment to reach 12 million units this year. DVD+RW will be a major format of DVD recorders, which uses flash as the recording media. Meanwhile, hard disk-based DVD recorders will be targeting the Japanese market.
The debut of the D-class audio amplifier has popularized HTiB systems. Combining DVD audio/recorder, radio data system and 6-channel D-class amplifiers in a single box, HTiB simplifies the structure of home entertainment systems. Reduced power consumption and greater reliability are key challenges facing portable DVD designers. Only few manufacturers with strong technical capabilities have successfully developed this product being exported to the United States and Europe. With the drop in the cost of LCD panels and ICs, and automobiles becoming more affordable, the portable DVD player market in China will enjoy rapid growth in telematics.
TV-on-phone
In addition to the anticipated growth of STBs as well as LCD and PDP TVs, various portable devices like cellphones, PDAs and laptops capable of receiving TV programs will become popular.
In Japan, for instance, telecom operators are now offering TV-on-phone services to attract consumers and intensify 3G applications. Though the offering is still far from being a hit, many manufacturers have planned to follow suit. TV cellphones are also expected to be seen in Taiwan and Korea. Following the trend, some PDA OEMs will also introduce modules for watching TV on handhelds and laptops.
TI's Wu said that many Chinese laptop manufacturers have already designed small-sized USB self-powered TV STBs, or have even used PCMCIA TV cards to add TV reception functionality to laptops easily. To improve the entertainment function on laptops, the application of USB TV set-top boxes will develop rapidly, which could spark fierce competition among manufacturers.
China DTV standard soon
The wide adoption of DVD players and the availability of digital CATV broadcasting in China will speed up the popularization of DTV in the mainland. To date, trial DTV broadcasting has been launched in 25 cities in China, indicating that the A/D shift has already taken off in the country. According to the Chinese State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) road map, commercial DTV broadcasting will begin by 2005, and nationwide analog TV broadcasting will be switched off by 2015.
However, DTV broadcasting is predominantly based on the DVB standard from Europe. China's own DTV standard has yet to emerge, which had been scheduled for launch last year, but was postponed due to unsatisfactory trial results. Homegrown standards under discussion include DMB-T and ADTB-T and sources say the SARFT has worked out a new solution based on multi-carrier technologies to speed up the development of a DTV standard. China is expected to announce its own DTV standard this year, becoming the fourth country to have a proprietary DTV technology.
According to Liu Quaneng, group leader for R&D of the DTV functionality and performance standard, the concept of HDTV is confusing, and that a precise definition for HDTV should be worked out to standardize the market. He said that the standard for HDTV display has been worked out and submitted, and is expected to be released before the announcement of the DTV transmission standard.
As display technology moves on into the high-definition realm, high-speed data flow based on MPEG-2 and MP@HL has also presented new challenges for network bandwidth and data storage. While MPEG-4 evolves from the present handheld device to digital cameras and DVD players, the new H.264 specification has also grabbed attention with the AV-condensed chip with video encoder.
Steven Hsieh, industry analyst at IEK of ITRI, says that the H.264 specification is highlighted because it not only complies with MPEG-4, but it also provides higher bandwidth for some cable or satellite (broadcast/TV) businesses. This effectively solves the narrow bandwidth of MPEG-4 compared with MPEG-2. More importantly, H.264 may be backward compatible with MPEG-2. Many alternative technologies have emerged worldwide, in which H.264, MPEG-4 and China's soon-to-be-released application visualization system (AVS) standard are very competitive.
Hsieh thinks that because of the high licensing fee and insufficient infrastructure of MPEG-4, companies are afraid to go into that business. After the H.264 specification is finalized, companies like LSI Logic, Sand Video, Envivio and UBVideo may come up with related products this year. Meanwhile, driven by the developments in DTV space, H.264 is compelling to have more extensive applications next year. However, MPEG-2 will continue to be a mainstream standard for a long time.
LSI Logic's Yang said that the typical industrialization cycle for a new standard is two years, and it is unlikely for AVS and H.264 to complete this cycle before 2005. Up to now the MPEG-4 standard has gained support from some DVD solution providers and AVS is expected to become a video-signal encoding standard in China. Meanwhile, the introduction of the enhanced versatile disc (EVD) standard, which is the first global HDTV disc standard, will lead to a shakeout in the DVD industry. Sources expect shipment of EVD-based products in China to exceed 1 million in 2004 and rise to over 10 million in 2005.
Year of standardization
Digital consumer electronics - riding on digital convergence - is getting hooked to networks through organic links with hardware, software, content and services, regardless of the type of media and device. However, consumer electronics face incompatibility between technologies due to the confusing existence of the underlying methods and standards, as well as the lack of compatibility with each other.
"Specialized network technologies are being developed according to the methods preferred by developers. But due to the clash of interests standardization is not being done well," said Jung Kwang-Mo, managerial researcher of the ubiquitous computing research center at the Korea Electronics Technology Institute.
To ensure the compatibility among digital consumer electronics and promote the home network market, 17 consumer electronics companies including Sony, Intel and Samsung formed the Digital Home Working Group. The group aims not to develop a new international standard of technologies, but to introduce existing technologies that will enable digital consumer electronics to make faster inroads.
The year 2004 is expected to see the establishment of standards for the digital consumer electronics environment and related products. Through a variety of digital convergence between networks, data, devices and services of different types, digital consumer electronics will fuse with ubiquitous technologies to evolve into a new type of smart information appliance networks.
- Major Lee and Laker Pu
Electronic Engineering Times - China
Report: China's next-generation DVD (EVD) faces hurdles
By
Feb 9, 2004, 12:32
Several Chinese companies are making products based on so-called Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD) technology, a format developed in China, iSuppli analyst Daniel Yang said in a report released Thursday. These products include 100,000 EVD players made early this year by Chinese company Jiangsu Shinco Electronic Group, Yang said.
He cautioned that the emerging EVD industry confronts serious challenges, including competition from the Blu-ray and HD-DVD disc formats designed to succeed today's DVD technology. Blu-ray is backed by Sony, Philips Electronics and other companies, while Toshiba and NEC are behind HD-DVD.
"It is still not clear if the EVD market can grow, as expected," Yang said.
The China-developed EVD standard is among several projects the government supports in its drive to reduce license fee payments and "shake off dependence on foreign technologies in production," according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
The efforts with EVD echo China's moves with respect to advanced cell phones and wireless data communication. For example, the country recently announced a new policy that requires all companies that import and sell Wi-Fi equipment to use an encryption standard, called Wired Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure, which China developed and is not used anywhere else.
China aims to reduce payments of patent royalties with the EVD standard, Yang said. In the case of DVD players, Chinese manufacturers pay "substantial fees" to the international owners of the main intellectual property patents, Yang said.
Yang said nine Chinese electronics manufacturers formed an EVD industry alliance last year to develop and promote EVD players. EVD decoder products have been made by Beijing Homaa Microelectronics Technology and Beijing E-world Technology, in cooperation with United States-based LSI Logic, Yang said.
In addition to facing competition from other advanced DVD formats, EVD technology "lacks a substantial library of software, i.e. films," Yang said.
Another potential problem is how well EVD products will work with the emerging technology of high-definition televisions, Yang said. "If the EVD players are not compatible with HD-TVs, their advantage in HD formats will be wasted," he said.
CNET Asia staff contributed to this report.
CE Companies Clash on HD DVD
China's role is the unknown variable
NEW YORK
With DVD now firmly entrenched as the dominant consumer video format, it can be difficult to appreciate the change in home video distribution since 1997. It was in the dog days of August seven years ago when the first DVD players reached retail stores in the United States. As the cliche goes, the rest is history.
Video enthusiasts-weary of aging VHF tapes-immediately got it when presented with the benefits of the "Digital Versatile Disc." The sound and picture quality were stunningly better. The familiar form was convenient and durable. The little five-inch silver platter was already a trusted media currency-from music and game systems to personal computers. In no time, DVD exploded as the fastest selling consumer electronics format in the history of the industry.
DVD revolutionized the video marketplace. Revenue from home video sales increased more than 300 percent, from about $4.6 billion in mostly VHS sales in '97 to $14.3 billion (of which more than 85 percent represents DVD sales) in 2003. Combined with rental revenue, the entire home video aftermarket is estimated to have topped $22.5 billion for 2003, according to research by "The Hollywood Reporter."
RED LIGHT LASER DISCS
Based on red-light laser technology, DVDs for video, multimedia, games and audio have capacities ranging from 4.7 to 17.1 GB of data. A consumer video DVD holds 4.38 GB on each side-enough capacity for a movie more than two hours long. Each side can hold two layers of data, allowing a single DVD to contain 15.9 GB of data.
The development of today's DVD format goes back to 1994, when there were two primary competing technologies-Super Disc (SD) from Toshiba, Warner and Multimedia CD (MMCD) from Philips and Sony; while Panasonic had a format of its own. Manufacturers, having suffered through the VHS-Betamax format war of the 1970s, decided to avoid another battle and combine their technologies.
They created a cash cow. Several patent groups, including the original companies and others, now collect royalties on DVD technology. DVD player manufacturers estimate that royalty payments equal as much as 10 percent of the player's hardware cost.
Now, with HDTV catching on, the original DVD format needs an upgrade to efficiently deliver full-length HD movies to the home. Two hours of HD video contains four to six times more information than similar standard-definition material.
BLUE LIGHT LASER DISCS
The solution, according to some major electronics companies, is to create a new kind of high-capacity DVD using blue light-rather than red light-laser technology. A blue laser beam can make a smaller spot of light, meaning each bit of data requires less space, thus increasing disc capacity.
Mastering blue light laser technology has been a long, difficult task, but blue laser technology can now store up to 27 GB of data on a standard-sized DVD. With twin layers on both sides, up to 108 GB can be stored.
The good news is that blue light technology is here and can be affordable. (Sony's XDCAM is based on blue light laser technology.) The bad news is two different blue light standards have emerged, again pitting different segments of the industry in a potential format war.
BLU-RAY vs. AOD
On one side, there's Blu-ray, a consortium that includes Sony, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, TDK, Hitachi, Thomson, Hewlett-Packard, LG, Matsushita, Pioneer and Dell. The Blu-ray disc, enclosed in a plastic sleeve, provides up to 50 GB on a dual layer, single-sided disc, which holds about five hours of HD video content. On the downside, Blu-ray is not backward-compatible with today's red laser format, so a separate red-laser assembly would have to be added to a Blu-ray player to play current DVDs. Blu-Ray players will hit the U.S. market in late 2005 or early 2006, the consortium has said.
Competing with the Blu-ray group is a blue-laser technology from Toshiba and NEC Electronics. Officially dubbed HD DVD, but previously known as Advanced Optical Disk, or AOD, this system holds about 15 GB of data single-sided, or 30 double, but offers backward compatibility with today's red laser discs using a dual-laser optical head. Add advanced video compression and AOD can handle about the length and quality of video as the Blu-ray system.
Another advantage is that AOD discs can be replicated in existing DVD plants with minor modification. Fabricating Blu-ray discs would require new facilities.
Enter a third group, the DVD Forum, an organization made up of about 220 companies, from car makers to chip manufacturers, whose job is to assure DVD format compliance. Though not officially a standards-making body, it gave its stamp of approval to AOD, meaning the group has ruled out the Blu-ray system.
The DVD Forum's direction prompted the Blu-ray consortium to go it alone in trying to establish its technology as the standard. That move got the attention of the U.S. Justice Department, which, according to a report earlier this year in "The Wall Street Journal," began a preliminary investigation into the actions of the Blu-ray consortium.
While none of the parties will comment on the investigation, news reports say the Department of Justice sent questionnaires to Blu-ray consortium members. No other information has been made public.
At this stage, with the success of DVD, no one wants a format war. However, to the companies involved, the stakes are extremely high. In the end, Hollywood's motion picture studios-owners of the world's most valuable content-will have to make a choice. Sony Pictures has already announced that it will make its titles available on Blu-ray; Warner Home Video favors red-laser HD technology using WM9 compression.
Last January, Robert Chapek, president of the Buena Vista Home Entertainment and Digital Entertainment Group, urged the two DVD technology groups to resolve their differences and come together with a single format.
"I call upon each of you today to engage in the debates, while not forgetting that the consumer is our ultimate audience," Chapek said at an industry event. The way to encourage video enthusiasts "to once again take the plunge and invest in yet another home video format [such as hi-def DVD] is to roll out a single, simple-to-understand format that doesn't confuse consumers."
Of course, the entire hi-def DVD contest is not about the well-being of consumers or the best technology. It's about money-potentially huge amounts of it. This is why the Blu-ray group has no intention of bowing out simply because the DVD Forum prefers its competitor. Too many dollars are at stake from future licensing.
In a low-margin business like consumer electronics, income from intellectual property is essential to profits. Philips, a pioneer that helped invent the original CD and DVD technologies, has vowed to double its 2-to-2.5 percent profit margins with additional income from patent royalties.
MEANWHILE, IN CHINA
Not everybody, however, wants the consumer electronics giants to enjoy another DVD windfall.
China, the leading location for the manufacture of low-cost DVD players, is rebelling against the stiff fees it must pay those who hold DVD intellectual property rights. To counter the major companies, China has developed its own high-definition video disc technology.
Called Enhanced Video Disc or EVD, the Chinese technology is already on the market with players costing only $200 and packaged with eight free movie discs. Current EVD uses conventional red-laser with MPEG-2 encoders from LSI Logic. Next-generation devices will use compression from On2, a New York City-based company formerly known as the Duck Corp. IBM is said to be lined up to provide China's copy protection technology.
China has worked on EVD since 1999, with funding from their State Trade and Economic Commission and Ministry of Information Industries. The new format will "attack the market share of DVD," said China's state news agency, Xinhua.
All this is making Hollywood studios very uncomfortable, said Richard Doherty, analyst at The Envisioneering Group, a technology testing and market research firm in Seaford, N.Y.
"The real irritant here is that the Chinese are already shipping their HD DVD format while the AOD and Blu-ray groups are still trying to get their acts together," he said. "The fear is Hollywood might not be in the driver's seat if China's EVD catches on before another standard is chosen."
The ball is now in the court of the studios. Their decision on a DVD format, expected through the Hollywood Advisory Council, a group of studio representatives, has no real due date but is expected in late summer.
News: by Frank Beacham 5/5/04
MPEG-2 Is Alive and Well And Living in China 3/26/04
You might not have noticed that it wasn't just Mark Twain who got a premature obit. At least once in your life you probably saw the picture of a beaming Harry S. holding the newspaper headlined "Dewey Defeats Truman."
Good old analog NTSC is supposed to die one second after 11:59:59 p.m. on Dec. 31, 2006 (and, if the FCC had its way, it would be a year earlier than that). Will it?
Hey, go ahead and assume that a dictatorial anti-NTSC regime takes over the United States between now and then and bans analog TV broadcasting. Well, there'd still be something like 300 million NTSC TV sets in the country, perfectly able to be used with cable and satellite. Ban analog cable and satellite outputs, and there'd still be a couple-hundred million VCRs and DVD players with (quasi-) NTSC outputs. It ain't easy to kill a technology, which is why I'm so amused by the reports that MPEG-2 is dead.
Allow me to be among the first million or so to acknowledge that there are more efficient squeezers than MPEG-2. So what? We live in the age of thousand-line HDTV. About a femtosecond after the first NTSC proposed 525-line TV in 1940, there were folks yelling to change it to a thousand lines. Now it's 64 years later, and there's still one whole heck-and-a-half of a lot more 525-line TVs out there than thousand-line TVs- and it's going to stay that way for a good long time.
TWO KINDS 'O FIGURES
That reminds me of something I saw recently (and at my age, it's a thrill to be reminded of anything). There's an association of radio and television manufacturers-it used to be called the "Radio and Television Manufacturers Association." Now it's called the Consumer Electronics Association, which is fair enough on account of there being more consumer electronics than just radios and TVs these days.
Anyhow, CEA releases two kinds of figures. One is the figures for U.S. factory sales to dealers; they get these as reports from their member manufacturers. The other is penetration of U.S. households based on a telephone survey. If they call a thousand people and 980 of them say they own a TV set, that gets listed as 98 percent penetration.
So far, so good. But what I read is that there's a third figure.
CEA has been reporting astonishing increases in the penetration of "digital televisions":
January 2001 - 1%
January 2002 - 2%
January 2003 - 4%
January 2004 - 8%
It's a nice, neat, binary progression. Our Beloved Commish, aka the FCC, proclaims the figure as often as possible as proof that the digital television transition is zipping along apace.
There are two problems with that - methinks I've ranted about one of them before. It's CEA's definition of a "digital television."
It could be something that's capable of receiving broadcast digital television signals, in which case Our Beloved Commish would be right to point to the figures. But it could also be something that not only can't receive digital broadcasts but also has not a single digital circuit in it (not counting the on/off switch)-just the capability (in a non-computer product) to display at least a 480p signal.
As a matter of fact, the vast majority of those "digital televisions" (a bunch more than 80 percent of them) ain't got any capability of receiving digital TV signals. So the 8 percent would be really more like 1 percent, except for the second problem.
The second problem is that, although CEA says its figures for "U.S. Household Penetration of Consumer Electronics Products" are "Based on Telephone Surveys Conducted by CEA," at least one of them ain't. Guess which one. Oh, yes. It's the one for "DTV." Instead, the number is fudged based on the factory-sales figures.
"But, Mario, why don't they report the figure they get from their telephone surveys?"
That's easy. They don't want to be laughed out of Washington.
Their telephone surveys report upwards of one-in-five American households owning a DTV. That would be pretty great news except for one thing. Factories ain't yet cranked out that many products that meet either part of CEA's definition.
What was it that a great, prematurely obituaried American writer said-something about lies, more lies, and statistics? Hey, I just got reminded of something else: China.
A FOURTH WAY?
China, you may recollect, is a big country. It's also highly populous, the most populous place on earth.
While America, Europe, and Japan were battling over ATSC, DVB-T and ISDB-T, China was dropping hints that it might pick a fourth way. Oh, horror! One-and-a-half billion digital TVs not matching anyone's patents - ouch! And it ain't just digital TV.
China might pick a digital-cinema system unlike anyone else's. Or it might choose its own version of DVD.
Let's see. How does it go? Next to myself, I like BVDs? Well, next after DVDs, China likes EVDs-and Taiwan FVDs. Those are the enhanced versatile disks and the finalized versatile disks.
You might think those are mechanisms for avoiding royalties to DVD interests, and you might be right. But that's not all. They also promise HDTV on a DVD-sized disk.
'THERE IS ANOTHER SYSTEM'
Here's where I get back to the death of MPEG-2. Warner Bros. says that, with some compression technology more advanced than MPEG-2, they could maybe stick HDTV onto a red-laser disk.
Lo, and behold (I think that means "Hi, please stay on the line"), there is a more advanced compression technology! It's called the advanced video codec (AVC). It's also called the JVT (joint video team) algorithm. It's called H.264, as well, and it's also called MPEG-4 Part 10. It's probably called a whole bunch more stuff, but, with Our Beloved Commish and Congress in a huff over indecency, I ain't going to reproduce that here.
Some tests show that sometimes AVC beats the pants off of some MPEG-2 codecs, especially if they're somewhat old. But wait! As Colossus told Dr. Forbin, "There is another system."
It's called Windows Media Video 9. The way I hear it, WMV9 is approximately equal to AVC/JVT/H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10/M.O.U.S.E. I'm just kidding about the last five letters, of course. The Mouse made a deal with Microsoft last month to use Windows digital rights management.
But wait! As I just said, Colossus told Dr. Forbin, "There is another system." JPEG2000 surely ain't MPEG-2.
But wait! As I just said I just said Colossus told Dr. Forbin, "There is another system." DV compression can be used for HDTV (D-9 HD and DVCPRO HD). It ain't MPEG-2, either.
But wait! As I just said I just said I just said Colossus told Dr. Forbin, "There is another system." On2 Technologies says China is using its VP6 compression in EVD. And one-and-a-half billion EVD players are a lot!
Maybe China will, someday, use VP6 in EVD. In the meantime, EVD gets its HDTV via LSI Logic MPEG-2. Needless to say (which means I'm just filling up space), each and every DVD player on Planet Earth uses MPEG-2. So does each and every digital-cable box and the vast majority of the world's satellite receivers, DVRs, PVRs, or whatever the generic name for TiVo is? MPEG-2. Over-the-air DTV in ATSC, DVB-T, or ISDB-T flavors? MPEG-2, again.
Chivalry may be dead. MPEG-2 ain't.
Mario Orazio is the pseudonym of a well-known television engineer who wishes to remain anonymous. You can e-mail him at Mario_Orazio@imaspub.com
Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD)
Developed by leading Chinese consumer OEMs for use in Greater China Region
Beijing E-world Technology, which includes leading Chinese consumer electronics manufacturers SVA, Shinco, Xiaxin, Yuxing, Skyworth, Nintaus, Malata, Changhong and BBK, has developed a new digital video format called Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD). Supported by the Chinese government, the first HD EVD content and optical disc players were unveiled at a special event in Beijing on November 18, 2003.
LSI Logic is providing E-world with HD encoding and decoding technologies based on the popular DoMiNo™ architecture. EVD is the first HD format created by using MPEG-2-based technology and a standard optical red laser. To deliver the industry's best quality HD and SD images, the DoMiNo architecture uses LSI Logic's award-winning PerfectView® MPEG-2 encoding algorithm.
EVD-enabled devices can include optional backward compatibility with DVD, VCD, SVCD and CD, making EVD the most versatile format in the market. Chinese consumers will be able to watch high-definition video content, play back their favorite music files, or display high-resolution JPEG pictures on HD-, LCD-, Rear Projection- and Plasma TVs.
Features
EVD Player Features:
1920x1080i or1280x 720p Video
1920x1080 50i or 1920x1080 60i display
EAC 6-Channel Audio
Motion Compensated De-interlacing Up Conversion
HD to SD Down Conversion
High Definition Resolution On-Screen Display (OSD) plus Interactive GUI
Simultaneous Playback of JPEG Photos and Audio FilesEVD Disc
Features:
Based on DVD5 or DVD9 Media
Content Protection Scheme
1280x720p format storage on one DVD9 disc
1920x1080i format storage on one DVD9 disc
Benefits
Benefits of EVD Player:
High Definition video quality
Supports both PAL or NTSC TV
Surround Sound effect
Backward compatible to most TVs available in the market
Display high-resolution JPEG photographs together with your favorite audio files; enables consumers to create personal HD albums
Benefits of EVD Disc:
High-volume and low-cost media to store HD content
Prevent illegal use of HD content stored on the optical media
105 minutes Audio/Video Storage
50 minutes Audio/Video Storage
http://www.lsilogic.com/technologies/industry_standards/enhanced_versatile_disc_evd.html
LSI Logic partners with Beijing E-World to develop technologies for new EVD format in China
LSI Logic delivers encoding and decoding technologies based on its DoMiNo architecture
EVD is first optical-based format to support high definition playback for video disc players, home terminals and HDTV devices
First EVD content and EVD optical disc players unveiled by leading Chinese consumer electronics manufacturers at event in Beijing
MILPITAS, Calif. - November 18, 2003 - A leader in innovative digital media processing technologies for the Digital Home, LSI Logic Corporation (NYSE: LSI) today announced that it is providing Beijing E-world Technology, a consortium of consumer electronics manufacturers, with high definition (HD) encoding and decoding technologies (based on the DoMiNoTMarchitecture) for a new digital video format called Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD). Targeted for use in the Greater China region, the first high-definition EVD content and optical disc players are being unveiled today in Beijing at a special event co-hosted by E-world, the State Intellectual Property Office and Zhongguancun Science Park, and supported by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Information Industry, the Ministry of Commerce, the General Administration of Press and Publication, and the Station Administration of Radio, Film and TV (SARFT).
"LSI Logic has driven many key digital video industry firsts such as the first single-chip DVD recorder system processor, the first real-time DV/MPEG transcoder, the first MPEG encoders for standard definition and high definition broadcast, as well as HDTV PCI cards for HD content creation," said Umesh Padval, senior vice president and general manager, LSI Logic's Broadband Entertainment Division. "With our experience in China with the very successful VCD format, it is fitting that we are the first semiconductor supplier to deliver high-definition EVD technologies. It is exciting to be working with E-world Technology as a key partner for the EVD format."
Breaking new ground by enabling the first standard red-laser optical disc products to support true high-definition content, E-world has designed the EVD format to support high-definition TV services and to enable video disc players and home terminal devices. EVD-enabled devices can include optional backward compatibility with DVD, VCD, SVCD and CD, making EVD the most versatile format in the market. Chinese consumers will be able to watch high-definition video content, playback their favorite music files, or display high-resolution JPEG pictures on HD-, LCD-, Rear Projection- and Plasma TVs. EVD players with these features were demonstrated at today's event by nine leading Chinese consumer electronics manufacturers: SVA, Shinco, Xiaxin, Yuxing, Skyworth, Nintaus, Malata, Changhong, BBK.
"The EVD format is very appealing to the Chinese mass market because of its high-definition capabilities and optional backward compatibility, which are the future of consumer electronics," said Mr. Gu Peizhu, chairman of SVA. "The Chinese government is promoting the format as a technology system to apply to home interactive devices, as well as traditional optical devices. Hence, the total market for EVD in China has the potential for tremendous volume."
"HDTV is not only key to the China market, it's a worldwide trend. EVD is well suited to meet this market trend by providing a cost effective solution to deliver HD content to the home," said Mr. Qin Zhi Shang, general manager of Shinco. "With strong support from the content industry we believe that EVD will be a high volume format widely accepted by consumers in China."
EVD is the first format to allow a movie in high-definition to be compressed and stored onto a single side of a standard red-laser optical disc. Major Chinese, Hong Kong, and Hollywood studios are supporting the new technology, with initial plans to release more than 50 movies in high-definition EVD format, soon to be followed by the addition of hundreds of titles. Content will be protected by the EVD Copy Protection Scheme and Copy Controltechnology developed by E-world to prevent illegal copy and distribution of video and audio files.
"The EVD format represents an exciting breakthrough in digital entertainment," said Dr. Hao Jie, president of E-world Technologies. "Partners like LSI Logic are enabling E-world to successfully bring EVD into the Chinese market that offers both versatility and advanced features. For example, LSI Logic was instrumental in overcoming the challenges of compressing high-definition content onto a single optical disc. E-world Technology values its relationship with LSI Logic and its ability to deliver the industry's highest-quality video for consumer electronic applications."
LSI Logic's Broadband Entertainment Division provides innovative digital media processing and silicon solutions to industry-leading, worldwide consumer electronics manufacturers. With a complete line of cutting-edge products for EVD, DVD, DVR, video peripheral, digital and HDTV, set-top box, and professional video production/broad-casting devices, LSI Logic delivers entertainment into and throughout the Digital Home.
About LSI Logic Corporation
LSI Logic Corporation (NYSE: LSI) is a leading designer and manufacturer of communications, consumer and storage semiconductors for applications that access, interconnect and store data, voice and video. In addition, the company supplies storage network solutions for the enterprise. LSI Logic is headquartered at 1621 Barber Lane, Milpitas, CA 95035, http://www.lsilogic.com.
Analog Devices aims eMedia platform squarely at consumer
By Junko Yoshida, EE Times
May 12, 2003 (7:51 AM EDT)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/article/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=18308445
Paris - As audio and video algorithms proliferate in digital consumer boxes, Analog Devices Inc. is responding with the eMedia Platform family of Blackfin programmable digital signal processors and accompanying software. The move targets set-top boxes, DVD players, portable entertainment devices and other consumer markets where ADI has had little presence.
The platform will pit the Norwood, Mass., company against such consumer system-on-chip leaders as STMicroelectronics and LSI Logic, and against such DSP suppliers as Texas Instruments and Equator Technologies, which are leading a push from ASICs to DSP solutions in the consumer world.
ADI's first single-chip Blackfin eMedia Platform device, the ADSP-BF532eM10, is capable of decoding D1-resolution DVD content at 30 frames per second with full support for Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Media Video 9 (WMV9). Comparing the device with TI's C55-based DSP, John Croteau, general manager of ADI's Media Platform and Services Group, said, "We are offering our Blackfin-based processor at the same price as our competitor's DSP, with twice as much performance at two-thirds less power consumption."
But ADI faces an uphill battle in the consumer market. Many leading consumer electronics companies have already invested in systems-on-chip based on favored silicon platforms. Often these SoCs include an embedded DSP or VLIW engine, offering some of the flexibility and programmability required for next-generation systems.
Rather than try to unseat an incumbent SoC supplier, ADI plans to pitch its eMedia Platform processor as "a companion processor" to ASICs that are already a part of such consumer systems as DVD players, Croteau said.
Route to differentiation
Leading Japanese consumer electronics companies, pressured to compete against $70 DVD players from suppliers in Taiwan and China, are scrambling to differentiate their products by adding features like WMV9, said Scot Robertson, ADI's product-marketing manager. "But it's too much to add a $40 programmable processor to a $150 DVD player. With a Blackfin-based IC, priced at $11.95, you can design a $100 DVD player with much more programmability."
ADI styles its companion chip as a Trojan horse that will allow it to go deeper into the consumer market in the future. Once the device is designed into a mainstream digital entertainment system, consumer OEMs will see that "there is nothing our Blackfin eMedia Platform processors can't do" compared with an SoC, Croteau said. ADI hopes to move manufacturers away from multicore, multiarchitecture approaches to a single-architecture Blackfin system, he said.
A combination of financial and time pressure makes it impossible for leading consumer electronics manufacturers to design multiple ASICs for every new product, so the need for programmability is paramount, suppliers said.
But the choice of an SoC or an off-the-shelf DSP that works with an existing RISC processor will depend on "time-to-market and your own company's religion," said Will Strauss, president of DSP consultancy Forward Concepts (Tempe, Ariz.). "In my opinion, the combo RISC-DSP approach is ideal for many applications that require high-level protocols or rich GUI-based operating systems that are written in C, favoring the RISC [device], and DSP-centric algorithms like WMV9, favoring the DSP," he said. The argument then boils down to "whether they should be on the same silicon or separate chips," Strauss said.
With little ASIC experience and no licensable DSP cores, ADI may have to work hard on system OEMs looking for an integrated one-chip solution.
LSI Logic Corp., for instance, believes it offers the best of both worlds with solutions ranging "from licensable DSP cores to ASICs to complete standard products for consumer applications," said Tuan Dao, vice president of the DSP Products Division at LSI Logic (Milpitas, Calif.).
Many SoCs on the market-including LSI Logic's Ziva and Domino chip families-include one or two DSPs for audio processing. End products that include a separate, programmable DSP are typically "high-end, low-volume emerging products," said Tim Vehling, senior director of marketing for consumer products at LSI Logic. "As the market takes off, they are most likely to migrate to integrated SoCs."
Pick your battle,/b>
As far as supporting new algorithms, programmable DSPs can be enabled more quickly than SoCs, suppliers said. For example, Texas Instruments, Equator and ADI have publicly demonstrated their ability to decode WMV9.
But Analog Devices may need to pick its battles carefully for the eMedia Platform family. Michelle Abraham, senior market analyst at In-Stat/MDR (Scottsdale, Ariz.), said cable and satellite providers will not pay extra for a box to receive content developed by others. Although there is mild interest in adding WMV9 decoding capability to DVD players, Abraham predicted that programmable processors will be most effective in Internet Protocol/DSL set-tops "because the box could then be easily customized to the compression format the provider desires."
For its part, TI has since the mid-1990s carefully tailored its DSP solutions for a host of consumer product segments ranging from cell phones, digital cameras and portable MP3 players to set-tops and personal video recorders. "The world is moving from MPEG-2 to 'don't know what to decode,' " said Jean-Marc Charpentier, business development manager at TI France. "The key is to build a future-proof platform, while fine-tuning codes and feature sets for different applications."
New 3G Phone for NTT DoCoMo
28th July,2004
ASIA : NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries unveiled today a new 3G "FOMA® Raku Raku PHONE" handset.
The handset is equipped with a camera that has an effective resolution of 320,000 pixels, and is the first model in the easy-to-use "Raku Raku PHONE" series to be compatible with the 3G network.
As a result, users will be able to make videophone calls, as well as send and receive i-motion mail™. The handset also features a "voice mail" function that allows users to send and receive voice messages.
Users may also easily receive voice calls and videophone calls by following the blinking keys and the instructions displayed on the screen. As with previous easy-to-use handsets, this model displays detailed image-based instructions to smoothly walk users through each step of basic operations such as creating and sending mail.
The handset comes with a "Read Aloud" function that enables voice readouts for a wide variety of information including text from i-mode®sites, message logs, operating menus, handset calculator input and output, notification of outgoing-message transmission, battery recharge alert, and more.
The phone has a large 2.4-inch QVGA LCD and text font can be enlarged to 30 dots, making text display easier to read.
Please see the attachment for the handset's main specifications.
Attachment
Main Specifications of the FOMA Raku Raku PHONE
(Subject to change)
Size
Height x width x thickness
(folded) 103 x 51 x 23 mm
Weight Approx. 120 grams
Continuous Stand-by Time Approx. 270 hours (dynamic)
Continuous Talk Time Approx. 120 minutes
Continuous Video Calling Approx. 85 minutes
Main LCD Approx. 2.4 inches (320 x 240 dots); 65,536 colors; QVGA; semi-transparent TFT
Sub LCD Approx. 1.2 inches (60 x 120 dots); STN monochrome
Camera Outer CMOS camera
Effective resolution: 320,000 pixels
Recorded resolution: 310,000 pixels
Inner CMOS camera
Effective resolution: 110,000 pixels
Recorded resolution: 100,000 pixels
Colors Silver / Dark Green / Bronze
Jul. 26, 2004 This videophone may set standard
It costs $300, and you can tap into a broadband Internet connection
The videophone has emerged in numerous incarnations over the years, but for one reason or another, no single standard or device has captured the public's imagination.
That could change with the advent of VoIP, or voice over Internet protocol, a technology standard that has made Internet telephone service a reality and could help untangle the red tape of phone service.
The Packet8 DV326 videophone, from 8x8, is a VoIP telephone that has the features of conventional phone service plus built-in videoconferencing. Plug the DV326 into a broadband Internet connection and you get both, using a single connection point, service provider and interface.
The device has a 5-inch TFT screen and offers conventional features such as voice mail, call waiting and caller ID. Calls, whether to other DV326 units or to ordinary telephones, are initiated by dialing a phone number.
The DV326 is available at 8x8's Web site (www.packet8.net) at a cost of $300 for one and $500 for two, after rebates. The calling plan, which is also provided by 8x8, costs $30 per month. Service includes unlimited calls within the United States and Canada; international calls to another DV326 are also included but to other phones cost extra.
An important feature of the DV326 is portability: If you are traveling or you move, you can carry it with you.
"Wherever you plug in, if anyone calls your phone number, that phone will start ringing," said Bryan Martin, chief executive of 8x8. -- NEW YORK TIMES
Framed pictures from your computer
Digital picture frames have been around for a while. But a new version from PhotoVu, the PV1910, taps into your wireless network for pictures to display on its 19-inch LCD screen.
Once you have configured the frame within your network, you can direct it to specific files in your computer and it will draw the pictures in those files through the wireless connection and display them. No more memory limitations: If a picture is on your computer, it can be on the wall.
The PV1910 can be controlled by any computer running Windows, Macintosh, Linux or Unix. No special software is needed, but the computer has to be turned on for the frame to work. The software that controls the frame is reached through your Internet browser.
The PV1910 is compatible with virtually all digital cameras and can display images up to 12 megapixels in size. It costs $1,299 at www.photovu.com. -- NEW YORK TIMES
Verizon Risks Profit Betting It Will Win TV, Internet Customers
July 28 (Bloomberg) -- From his 39th-floor office, Verizon Communications Inc. Chief Executive Officer Ivan Seidenberg looks through cables draping his building and holding up scaffolding, marring his view of the Manhattan skyline.
``It's 30 years old,'' Seidenberg explains with a shrug as he sits at the table in his corner office with views of Central Park and the East River. ``It needed refurbishing.''
The marble-and-glass facade of the company's headquarters, at the corner of Sixth Avenue and 42nd Street, isn't the only Verizon structure needing an upgrade. Verizon, formed in 2000 by the $71 billion acquisition of GTE Corp. by Bell Atlantic Corp., runs a century-old network of copper-wire phone lines that transmit calls for 27 million homes from Maine to California.
Verizon's sole CEO since April 2002, when co-CEO Charles Lee ended his tenure, Seidenberg, 57, wants to offer cable television and Internet services along with its telephone package. He plans to extend fiber-optic cables directly to people's homes, a project that Merrill Lynch & Co. analysts say would cost as much as $30 billion over 15 years.
The company has lost subscribers to long-distance phone companies like AT&T Corp., mobile phone carriers such as Cingular Wireless LLC and upstarts such as Vonage Holdings Corp. that are using technology that sends calls more conveniently for customers and at a lower cost to consumers and companies.
Bundles of glass strands as thin as human hair can deliver the gamut of residential communications -- phone calls, e-mail, Internet access and television channels -- in the time it takes the existing network to carry a single call, says Seidenberg.
Cable Competition
``We have to reconstruct the revenue streams around which we generate our growth and, therefore, our earnings,'' says Seidenberg, sitting with one leg crossed over the other and moving his foot in time with the cadence of his speech. ``The goal for us is to provide a very high-speed network to bring large volumes of data so we can re-create new industries.''
John Krause, who helps manage $62.4 billion at Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, which holds 1.1 million Verizon shares, says the biggest threat to Verizon's 25 percent share of the $128.2 billion U.S. local telephone market is from cable television companies.
Comcast Corp. and Cablevision Systems Corp., for example, are advertising their own versions of phone service, packaged with high-speed Internet access and TV channels.
Seidenberg started in telecommunications four decades ago at Verizon predecessor New York Telephone Co. by splicing the wires he's now racing to replace.
The Wireless Advantage
A Bronx, New York, native, Seidenberg is making the upgrade, ripping up sidewalks to lay cable, so Verizon can be the first local phone carrier to add television and to offer Internet access at speeds 20 times faster than it can now provide.
The overhaul would help Seidenberg match TV services sold by cable companies, which have invested more than $80 billion in the past five years so they can deliver phone calls and the Internet along with video. Seidenberg says he would still have an advantage over competitors because he sells wireless calling, which cable companies don't offer.
Verizon yesterday said second-quarter profit surged more than five-fold, led by a 25 percent gain in wireless sales.
Craig Nedbalski, who helps manage $49.9 billion at Cleveland- based Victory Capital Management Inc., says the fiber-optic installation may not come fast or cheaply enough to overcome the cable challenge.
Cable companies lead Verizon and other phone carriers in luring high-speed Internet subscribers, and they've nabbed almost 3 million phone customers in the past three years.
`The Upper Hand'
Cable providers will keep making inroads, putting pressure on phone prices, because it's easier and cheaper to equip a cable system to carry calls than it is to make a phone network capable of delivering TV, Nedbalski says.
``Have you seen any video over your phone line yet,'' says Nedbalski, whose employer's parent, KeyCorp, owns 6.8 million Verizon shares. ``I need to see it work, and I need to see it adopted. Cable guys have the upper hand.''
In the past year, Nedbalski's firm added cable stocks such as Comcast, the largest U.S. cable television provider, to its funds. KeyCorp holds 4.9 million Comcast shares.
Under Seidenberg, who took night classes to earn his bachelor's degree in math from City University of New York, Verizon's stock declined 23 percent in the past two years, to $35.40 on July 13 from $46.10 on March 28, 2002, the last trading day before he became sole CEO.
The 11-member Standard & Poor's 500 Telecommunication Services Index declined 21 percent, while Comcast's stock dropped 17 percent in the same period.
Local Call Leader
Verizon, which in April replaced former parent AT&T in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, has hemorrhaged 8 million lines since mid-2000.
Sales rose to $67.8 billion last year from $64.7 billion in 2000 as gains at Verizon's burgeoning wireless company -- the biggest in the U.S. -- outweighed declines in its telecom unit, which serves customers in 29 states and Washington, D.C.
Verizon ranks first for local calling, with 55 million lines, and is fourth in consumer long-distance sales, after AT&T, SBC Communications Inc. and MCI Inc.
Before Verizon was formed, Seidenberg was CEO of Bell Atlantic, one of seven companies spawned by the 1984 breakup of AT&T. Seidenberg had been CEO of Nynex Corp., which Bell Atlantic acquired in 1997. Four of the original so-called Baby Bells remain.
Losses to E-Mail
``Verizon is one of a bunch of former monopolies facing all kinds of competitive pressure,'' says Mark Hesse-Withbroe, an analyst at U.S. Bancorp Asset Management, whose Minneapolis-based parent, U.S. Bancorp, owns 6.6 million Verizon shares.
Like customers of fellow Bell companies BellSouth Corp., Qwest Communications International Inc. and SBC, some Verizon clients have departed because they're relying more on e-mail.
Others have flocked to wireless service plans featuring limitless local and interstate calls for a flat fee, while some disconnected lines devoted to dial-up Internet access in favor of cable modems or digital subscriber lines that offer Web surfing at higher speeds.
Long-distance companies AT&T and MCI and other recent entrants to the local phone market have also nabbed 15.2 million subscribers under U.S. Federal Communications Commission rules designed to foster competition, according to the FCC.
More Regulations
The regulations forced Verizon and other regional carriers to lease networks at rates set by state regulators. Seidenberg and his counterparts will probably start winning back subscribers who switched to AT&T and MCI now that a federal court has scrapped the network-leasing rules. AT&T on July 22 said it would stop trying to add residential subscribers.
A U.S. appeals court said in March the rules were illegal under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In June, the U.S. solicitor general and the FCC chose not to ask the Supreme Court to review the decision.
Seidenberg's losses to cable companies have only just started, says Krause at Minneapolis-based Thrivent. ``Cable companies are the real threat,'' he says. ``They have a really robust plant that can offer voice.''
What's more, Verizon remains subject to other rules, such as FCC and state regulations that let the government determine how much providers can charge to carry each other's phone calls, while cable companies run largely free of regulation, Krause says.
And unlike employees of its cable rivals, most of Verizon's workers are represented by unions, increasing the company's labor costs and reducing flexibility in moving and firing workers. ``They are cost and opportunity disadvantaged,'' Krause says.
Reducing Debt
Seidenberg, who served as an Army sergeant in Vietnam, says Verizon is prepared for the cable onslaught. ``They do have good architecture; they do have less regulation,'' he says of cable companies. ``The trade-offs are, we have more cash, more concentration and, I think, better-trained people.''
Verizon has less debt, compared with earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, than Comcast. Verizon's debt-to-Ebitda ratio at the end of March was 1.77 compared with 3.89 for Comcast, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Chief Financial Officer Doreen Toben, 54, has used cash and asset sales to slash $18.9 billion from Verizon's debt in two years.
Seidenberg rejects the suggestion that telecommunication and cable companies are at war. He says both Verizon and cable providers can gain. ``I view them as a competitor, but I also view them as a responsible partner in expanding the capacity of our industries to grow,'' he says.
`Drive-by Shootings'
Verizon and its cable competitors, Seidenberg says, will be survivors in an industry that in the past three years has seen bankruptcies for WorldCom Inc. and Global Crossing Ltd.
Seidenberg gives his deputies wide latitude in running their units and keeps himself abreast of developments through informal conversations he terms drive-by meetings, says Robert Ingalls, 49, Verizon's president of retail markets. ``I've heard that term differently, as `drive-by shootings,''' Ingalls says.
``He knows how to get you in a discussion and to motivate you to focus on the right stuff by asking a lot of questions,'' he says.
Ingalls recalls one instance, before the merger, when he was Bell Atlantic's vice president of consumer marketing and the company had just begun losing lines in New York.
Seidenberg's Advice
``It was probably one of the more intense meetings,'' he says. ``I was a little bit on the hot seat. He subtly called me into his office, and he gave me a lot of very specific messages about, `It's good to have passion about what you do.' He reinforced for me the things I should do to try to solve the problem.''
Seidenberg emphasized that Ingalls should focus on what he can change -- such as marketing -- and not worry about what he doesn't control. Ingalls says he followed the advice by introducing more-flexible service plans.
Half a decade later, the competition is heating up again.
Philadelphia-based Comcast plans to make phone service available to almost all of its 21.5 million subscribers by the end of 2006, the company said in May.
Like other cable companies, Comcast delivers calls using circuit-switched technology, which can convey only a single conversation over a given circuit at a time and is the same method used by the Baby Bells.
Comcast and its counterparts are quickly adopting Voice over Internet Protocol, which cuts carriers' costs by as much as half, according to Atlanta-based Cox Communications Inc.
`I Love It'
Comcast, Cox and other cable providers will probably have 9.6 million phone customers by the end of 2008, up from 2.6 million at the end of 2003, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. analyst Vijay Jayant says.
By the end of 2008, gains by cable companies and other sellers of phone service based on VoIP will probably cost Verizon and the other local phone companies $7.3 billion in annual sales, Fitch Ratings analyst Michael Weaver says.
Jeff Parsons, a 33-year-old radio disc jockey from Portland, Maine, says switching to the VoIP product sold by Time Warner Inc.'s cable division has cut his phone bill by two-thirds. ``I absolutely love it,'' says Parsons, who made the switch from Verizon last year. ``The amount of money you save is incredible.''
Home State Competition
Parsons says he pays Time Warner $39.95 a month for unlimited local and long-distance calling compared with an average of $120 he paid Verizon. A plan that includes unlimited local and long-distance calling for $54.95 a month is available in Parson's area, according to Verizon's Web site.
Time Warner Cable, the second-largest U.S. cable television company, had 14,000 telephone subscribers at the end of March and intends to make VoIP calling available to all of its 10.9 million subscribers by the end of the year.
Verizon's competitive challenges may be most acute in the company's home state of New York. Moody's Investors Service in April cut the rating on debt issued by the company's New York unit by three levels to Baa2, Moody's second-lowest investment- grade credit rating, citing rapidly expanding competition from cable companies.
Two months after the credit rating cut, Cablevision, the biggest cable service provider in the New York area, introduced a product that groups TV, phone and Web access at an introductory rate of $90 a month, 30 percent less than the same bundle of services from Verizon.
And now, for the first time, Verizon finds itself having to grapple with other providers for a five-year contract to sell as much as $200 million in annual services to New York City.
Power Failure
New technologies are letting the city, like other customers, choose from a broader range of service providers rather than depend on what used to be a monopoly phone company. Previously, only data services were bid upon.
Gino Menchini, commissioner of the city Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, praises Verizon's efforts to restore phone service to lower Manhattan after the Sept. 11 attacks, including its role in getting the New York Stock Exchange running six days later. ``They did a great job,'' he says.
Verizon didn't do as well during the power failure in August 2003, the largest blackout in North American history, Menchini says. ``We had central offices that failed because generators weren't adequately maintained,'' he says. ``I'm working very closely to ensure that doesn't happen again.''
Seidenberg says he's confident Verizon can compete. ``They've laid out a fair challenge,'' he says. ``And we think we have new technology and new skills to offer.''
`Focus On Growth'
Seidenberg, who earlier in his career handled federal regulatory affairs for AT&T and Nynex, says he spent too much time in 2003 calling the attention of investors and lawmakers to laws he considers outdated or unfair.
Those include the rules that forced him to lease parts of Verizon's network at rates determined by states rather than the market.
``It's more important to get focused on growth and opportunity than it is to get focused on what government is or isn't doing,'' Seidenberg says. He says he let complaints about laws get in the way of his plans to transform Verizon.
``We allowed the issues to dominate our psychology too much,'' he says. ``They became too much a part of our public persona.''
Confronting Cable
As part of the effort to make up for lost time, he's announced plans to spend about $800 million installing fiber- optic cables to 1 million homes in California, Florida, Texas and six other states this year. He says he'll double the number of homes next year and reach customers who generate half of the company's revenue in the next five years.
The effort will cost $1,000-$1,200 a home, totaling as much as $30 billion over 15 years, says Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen.
Besides cutting the cost of delivering traditional calling, having fiber-optic connections to homes means consumers will be able to download songs, documents and other information at speeds 20 times faster than now possible over DSL.
Ultimately, Verizon plans to use the connections to transmit video and television, confronting cable providers on their home turf, Seidenberg says.
He's made a good start by expanding what Verizon calls its other growth divisions, including DSL and its Verizon Wireless mobile phone unit -- 55 percent of which is owned by Verizon, with 45 percent owned by Vodafone Group Plc -- says analyst Tim Gilbert of Des Moines, Iowa-based Principal Global Investors, which manages $122 billion, including Verizon bonds.
Reducing Costs
Customers who buy a bundle of products that includes local and long distance or fast Web access are about 70 percent less likely to disconnect local lines and generate an average of $5 more in monthly revenue than those buying a single service, Verizon Vice Chairman Lawrence Babbio, 59, says.
In the first quarter, 50 percent of Verizon's $17.1 billion in revenue came from areas such as wireless, DSL and long distance, compared with 45 percent a year earlier.
``We have focused on the things it's going to take first and foremost to keep our customers and, secondly, to continue to drive our revenue,'' retail markets head Ingalls says of Verizon's efforts to sell a broader range of products.
In the first quarter, phone companies such as Verizon added more high-speed Internet customers than cable companies did for the first time, say UBS AG analysts John Hodulik and Aryeh Bourkoff.
Top Wireless Company
Seidenberg is investing more than $1 billion in two years on VoIP equipment so he too can reduce costs, says Albert Lin, an analyst at American Technology Research in San Francisco.
He's started selling satellite television through an agreement with DirecTV Group Inc., the largest U.S. satellite TV company, for customers who want to buy phone, Web access and TV services from the same vendor.
Seidenberg's most attractive division is one cable companies lack: Verizon Wireless, Victory Capital's Nedbalski says. The Bedminster, New Jersey-based company outranks other U.S. mobile phone carriers in terms of subscribers, sales and spending on network upgrades.
Run by Dennis Strigl, 58, Verizon Wireless lifted revenue 21 percent to $6.2 billion in the first quarter and was the only one of Verizon's four units with a sales gain.
Verizon Wireless ranked highest in customer satisfaction in each of the 12 markets covered by a survey conducted last year of more than 31,000 users of the Consumer Reports Web site, showing why it has the lowest client turnover in the industry.
Small Acquisitions
Seidenberg missed an opportunity to own all of Verizon Wireless earlier this year, when Vodafone failed to acquire AT&T Wireless Services Inc. The purchase would have required Vodafone to sell its $20 billion Verizon Wireless stake to Verizon.
Seidenberg and Strigl say the relationship was unharmed by Vodafone's interest in exiting the partnership and that Vodafone was justified in not overpaying for AT&T Wireless. ``If anything, my first reaction was, I was pleased Vodafone was in the game to drive the price up,'' Strigl says.
SBC and BellSouth, parents of Cingular Wireless, acquired AT&T Wireless for $41 billion.
Seidenberg makes clear he's eager to own all of Verizon Wireless. ``Would we like to own 100 percent of the business? Sure,'' Seidenberg says.
Hard Hat
He's had to settle for expanding the wireless unit through smaller purchases, such as the July 1 acquisition of Qwest's mobile phone assets for $418 million.
Seidenberg keeps in a desk drawer the shears he used to splice cables when he started in the phone industry. He rifles through the closet of an otherwise uncluttered office to show he's also got a hard hat and a raincoat for use in the field, in case of hurricanes, floods or other catastrophes.
``You've got to keep them,'' he says. ``You've got to use them.''
Such preparation helped Verizon weather the telecommunications meltdown that sent WorldCom and Global Crossing into bankruptcy. Seidenberg is spending $30 billion to protect against what may be the hardest challenge yet.
Ittiam Systems Announces a Complete Solution for IP Video Phones
Wednesday July 28, 7:32 am ET
Enables Full Duplex Audio and Video Communication Over Broadband Networks Including Wireless LANs
BANGALORE, India, July 28 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Ittiam Systems today announced the availability of a complete solution for IP video phones that offers high quality full-duplex voice and video communication over broadband networks including wireless LANs. This integrated software and hardware solution is targeted at OEM customers who are engaged in the manufacture of two way video communications systems. Ittiam is already in discussion with three companies in Asia and the Americas.
Ittiam's IP video phone solution includes an embedded software framework along with a hardware demonstration and application development platform. The software sub-system is a modular package of audio and video processing functions, call control protocols and network protocols integrated with a common framework and running on a single digital signal processor. Video processing is designed to support industry leading video technologies. The current release is based on MPEG-4 simple profile capable of full motion video up-to 30fps at VGA resolution. It will be soon followed by a H.264 based solution. The voice and audio processing functions support a wide range of speech codecs for narrow and wide band voice, an acoustic echo canceller for hands free operation and associated telephony / signaling functions. An adaptive jitter buffer provides enhanced quality under adverse network conditions. The framework, modular architecture and application programming interface (API) support a wide range of video and audio standards catering to varying customer needs. This includes H.263, H.264 and WMV© for video and standards from ITU-T and ETSI for voice.
The hardware sub-system is a full-featured, flexible demonstration and development platform based on the TMS320DM642(TM) digital signal processor from Texas Instruments. It is available in a real-life-usage form factor with an alphanumeric keypad, on-board speaker, microphone, camera and 6.4" LCD display complete with Ethernet, wireless LAN, USB and IrDA interface. The platform supports a range of storage devices including hard disk drives and those with a CardBus interface. This platform is modular and configurable. It is designed to provide OEM customers the ability to rapidly integrate, explore and develop end solutions enabling a shorter time-to-market.
''Ittiam has successfully leveraged the high-performance capabilities of TI's DM642 digital media processor,'' said Pradeep Bardia, video marketing manager, TI. ''They have developed a complete and flexible video phone platform for OEMs that should enable significant reduction in product development time,'' he noted.
Ittiam's IP video phone solution caters to multiple closely related applications for home and enterprise environments. These include stand-alone phones, PC add-on cards and IP set-top boxes for one-on-one communication and video conferencing.
''We believe that the advances in the media processing technology and the availability of bandwidth are going to take video communication out of high- cost conference rooms to desktops at home and at offices,'' said Mr. Srini Rajam, chairman and chief executive officer of Ittiam Systems. ''We have the right combination of media and communication expertise to make that happen,'' he added.
Ittiam has already initiated development of a next generation solution based on H.264 video compression technology which is scheduled for 4Q04 release. The new solution will enable video communication over increasingly narrow channels including traditional telephone lines.
About Ittiam Systems
Ittiam Systems Private Limited, headquartered in Bangalore, is a technology product company singularly focused on digital signal processing systems in media and communication. The company operates through its network of offices and representatives around the world. Ittiam's customers include Fortune 100 companies and are distributed across U.S.A, Europe, Japan and Asia. For more details, visit www.ittiam.com.
HD-DVD comes out fighting, launch in 2005
By Martyn Williams, IDG News Service
July 26, 2004 9:25 am ET
The HD-DVD (High Definition/High Density-DVD) next-generation optical disc format got a boost Monday with the announcement by Toshiba Corp. and NEC Corp. that they plan to launch compatible products next year and with word that a major Japanese content producer is backing the format.
Toshiba and NEC announced their plans to launch HD-DVD hardware during the 2005 calendar year as a three-day event aimed at promoting the standard to Japan's entertainment industry got under way in Tokyo. Toshiba plans a home player and possibly a recorder while NEC said it plans a drive for use with computers.
At the same event Pony Canyon Inc., Japan's largest distributor of DVDs, said it plans to release content in the format and named the first eight discs it plans to produce.
The promotional effort aims to push HD-DVD toward victory in what has been until now a one-sided race to become the format of choice for high-definition video content.
To date demonstrations of HD-DVD have been largely confined to prototype models on show at technical seminars and some events. In contrast recorders based on the competing Blu-ray Disc are already on the market. Sony commercialized the first in 2003 and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd., better known as Panasonic, will put the second on sale in Japan this weekend.
The HD-DVD group, which is mainly led by Toshiba and NEC, is using the technological differences between the two formats as the basis for its argument that HD-DVD makes more sense than Blu-ray Disc and hopes the entertainment industry, both in Japan and elsewhere, is listening.
The industry is a tough crowd to please, said Toshio Yajima, a senior executive advisor to Microsoft Corp.'s Japan unit, Microsoft Co. Ltd. "They like to say no," he said.
But both sides in the format battle know that without the support of movie studios and entertainment companies their respective formats could be dead in the water.
Toshiba and NEC are appealing to the collective wallets of the industry.
Because HD-DVD discs are almost physically identical to current DVD discs, the same production lines can be used to produce both discs, thus saving the expense of building new factories, said Masato Ootsuka, senior manager of the engineering development department at optical disc maker Memory-Tech Corp.
A pilot line at the company's factory in Tsukuba, north of Tokyo, can be switched between DVD and HD-DVD in five minutes and production of a dual-layer 30GB HD-DVD disc takes 3.5 seconds, compared to 3 seconds for a DVD, Ootsuka said. Yields are also above 90 percent.
Hardware will also be cheaper to make because its closeness to DVD means it is less complicated, the companies say.
While Toshiba and NEC wouldn't comment Monday on the likely price of their first products, Hisashi Yamada, chief fellow of technology at Toshiba and also a chairman at the DVD Forum, said at an event in Los Angeles earlier this year that he expects the first players to cost around ¥100,000 (US$910), according to the company. Panasonic's Blu-ray Disc recorder due on sale this week will cost around ¥300,000.
The group is also pushing the message that, while HD-DVD offers a lower data storage capacity than Blu-ray Disc, HD-DVD can store more high-definition programming. That's because it uses the MPEG4.AVC and VC9 codecs, the former based on the H.264 codec and the latter on Microsoft's Windows Media 9 codec.
HD-DVD's codecs are more efficient than the MPEG2 system used in Blu-ray Disc can reduce the file size by two thirds, said Microsoft's Yajima. That means one 15GB disc can hold 180 minutes of high-definition video. A 29GB Blu-ray Disc can hold around 132 minutes of video, which is not long enough for around 5 percent of movies, he said.
One stumbling block to widespread support is the lack of a strong copy-protection and digital rights management system. However this work is underway and details are expected to be published soon, Yajima said.
The problem of illegal copying was highlighted in a recent report by the Motion Picture Association of America Inc. that said an average of 24 percent of Internet users in eight major countries have downloaded a movie and estimated losses to the movie industry from such piracy run into billions of dollars.
With the promotional event in Tokyo this week and Panasonic's imminent launch of its Blu-ray Disc player it appears the long-anticipated battle between the two sides is now beginning.
The Blu-ray Disc camp is targeting recording of high-definition programs, but this could hamper it in markets where high-definition programming has yet to take off. The HD-DVD team is seeking victory through the backing of entertainment companies for prerecorded content and hoping users are more interested in watching such content than time-shifting television.
Senior Video Software Engineer – Flash Authoring
Job Number: 2075BR
Location: San Francisco, CA
Apply
Summary
Macromedia is looking for an extremely bright and talented C++ engineer with top-notch video expertise to help create features for the next version of Macromedia Flash, the professional choice for creating rich content across desktops and devices. In this position you will work closely with quality assurance and other software engineers to create and drive video functionality in the Flash authoring software. The software you create will give web and video professionals new capabilities for creating video content that leverages the Flash Player—the most widely available video playback software on any computer platform today.
Responsibilities
Help drive the vision for video functionality within Flash, both through coding features and identifying opportunities.
Help drive the functional and architectural design of the product and work with other product teams to ensure cross-product consistency.
Work closely with Product Design and QA to define the right workflow and ensure quality for all the features you implemented.
Interact frequently with customers, understand customer needs and pain points, and help create a product that ensures customer success.
Design and implement new features in C++ and MFC, while maintaining compatibility with a large, existing, and cross-platform (Windows and Macintosh) code base.
Make the engineering trade-offs necessary to ensure timely delivery of the product.
Requirements
B.S. or M.S. degree in Computer Science, Digital Signal Processing, or related field from a top university, or equivalent experience.
Five or more years' experience with C++ and object-oriented design methodology.
Three or more years' experience in the video software field, or relevant video experience including video hardware or software development, digital video, image processing, or video hardware or software codec development.
Strong understanding of a wide range of video and image processing techniques and digital video compression standards, such as MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.263, H.264, and Windows Media Video.
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
Strong customer focus.
Motivated self-starter who likes working on very productive, fast-paced teams.
Ideal
Other useful video experience, including HDTV, ATSC, DVB, DVD, DV, professional video editing systems.
Significant contribution to the development of one or more market-leading software applications.
In-depth knowledge of Windows APIs and development tools.
Experience with Macintosh APIs and tools or with cross-platform development.
Experience with code performance optimization techniques and tools.
Strong knowledge of computer graphics, multimedia, or user interaction techniques.
Experience with all aspects of the product development cycle for a shrink-wrapped product, from requirements through specification, design, coding, debugging, release, and maintenance.
Familiarity with Macromedia Flash, Dreamweaver, and server technologies.
Knowledge of the Flash authoring tool as a designer and/or developer.
Experience integrating technology from third-party companies.
Conferencing Vendors Readying New Wares
By Jason Meserve
06/17/04 6:15 AM PT
Michael Brandafino, CTO at Glowpoint, says using H.264 video compression enables his company to offer the lower bandwidth service. H.264 boasts about the same video quality as the older H.263 standard at half the bandwidth. Previously, the company only offered service to enterprise-level customers via dedicated T-I connections.
A handful of vendors hope their new offerings, set to be announced this week, will make rich-media conferencing -- mixed voice, video and data -- more accessible and easier on the wallet for business users.
Among the scheduled announcements are Glowpoint's new less expensive and lower bandwidth videoconferencing service, First Virtual Communications' (FVC) enhanced Click to Meet 4.0 audio, video and Web conferencing system, and Sonic Foundry's new rich media recording systems. All three are scheduled to roll out and demonstrate new wares at next week's Infocomm show in Atlanta, an annual gathering that typically caters to audio/video dealers and integrators, but is taking on more of a network flavor this year.
Glowpoint, which offers an IP network backbone dedicated to videoconferencing traffic, will debut its Individual Video Access service targeted at small-office and home-office workers. The service will give subscribers a dedicated synchronous DSL line and guaranteed 256 Kbps connectivity for a single endpoint with a price of $299 per month ($200 less than the company's standard business offering).
As part of the new offering, resellers such as ReView Video will offer Sony's PC-11 endpoint bundled with the service, though any IP-capable endpoint will work.
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Michael Brandafino, CTO at Glowpoint, says using H.264 video compression enables his company to offer the lower bandwidth service. H.264 boasts about the same video quality as the older H.263 standard at half the bandwidth. Previously, the company only offered service to enterprise-level customers via dedicated T-I connections.
While Glowpoint is conservative about video quality at 256 Kbps, Wainhouse Reseach analyst Andrew Davis says he think it's sufficient. "For most people, it is not compromising quality," he says. "I do a lot of calls at 256 Kbps, even though I have a 1.1 Mbps connection."
The only downside, Davis says, is customers will not be able to use an embedded multipoint control unit (MCU) to connect more than two parties in a call without using an external bridge. This is because additional users would push the total conference bandwidth above the 256 K ceiling.
Integration with Desktop Apps
Similar offerings are available from iVCI and AT&T, although Glowpoint only allows video traffic on its network.
For FVC, Infocomm will be the stage for Click to Meet 4.0's unveiling and an update to the company's Conference Server. Click to Meet is a desktop application that integrates with Internet Explorer and combines video, audio and Web conferencing through one interface. Conference Server 7.3 is the heart of the system, offering contact, presence and an MCU for connecting multiple users in a single call.
Chief among the enhancements are a new user interface, better integration with desktop applications such as Microsoft Office and Messenger, and improved security in the form of Web snapshots that let secure sites be shared with conference participants without divulging password information. FVC also is beefing up Conference Server, which now can handle up to 500 simultaneous conference users (spread across multiple conferences) and 1,000 users logged on checking calendars and presence.
Click to Meet 4.0 costs $1,850 per concurrent user and is scheduled to begin shipping next week.
Capturing Audio and Video
Sonic Foundry will be demonstrating its new Media Site RL-400 and VL-400, rack-mounted appliances for recording rich media conferences. The RL-400 targets traditional training session -- where an instructor sits in front of a room (virtual or physical) and presents slides and other on-screen material.
The device captures audio, video and slides and synchronizes them into one presentation that can be viewed with Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player or exported into Macromedia Flash format. Similarly, the VL-400 captures videoconference calls and any data presented inside the call.
Both devices will have 160 Gbyte hard drives for storing content and a built-in CD burner. Presentations can be posted to a standard Web server or served up using Media Site's optional server product, which offers additional content-management features. Starbak offers a similar videoconference capture appliance, and a number of companies offer recording as a service.
Sonic Foundry is pricing the RL-400 at about $22,000. VL-400 pricing has not been set. Both products are scheduled to ship this fall.
© 2004 Network World. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company i/a/w MarketWatch.com, Inc. All rights reserved.
H.264 Codec
Learn what the H.264 codec is about and how to implement in your design.
H.264 Encoding/Decoding
Broadcast and streaming applications for trials and technology evaluation.
H.264
Highly optimized functions for audio, video, graphics, speech compression, computer vision, signal processing and mathematics. Many code samples. Free trial.H-264 is a high compression digital video Digital video is a type of video system that works by using a digital representation of the brightness and colour of each pixel of the image. Black and white digital video is also possible.
Introduction
Digital Camcorders come in two different data formats: interlaced and progressive scan. The interlaced cameras scan an image by alternating lines: the odd-numbered lines are scanned,
..... Click the link for more information. codec Codec is an abbreviation of "coder/decoder", which describes a device or program capable of performing transformations on a data stream or signal. Codecs can both put the stream or signal into an encoded form (often for transmission, storage or encryption) and retrieve, or decode that form for viewing or manipulation in a format more appropriate for these operations. Codecs are often used in videoconferencing and streaming media solutions.
..... Click the link for more information. standard written by the ITU-T ITU-T is the telecom standardization organization of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). It was previously known as CCITT, or Comité Consultatif International Téléphonique et Télégraphique (Consultative Committee for International Telegraphy and Telephony).
Series and Recommendations
It issues recommendations that have names like X.500, where X is the series and 500 is a serial number.
..... Click the link for more information. Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) together with the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) as the product of a collective effort known as the Joint Video Team (JVT). This standard is identical to ISO Iso (iso-) is an English prefix indicating similarity or equality. It comes from the Greek ισο&sigmaf, meaning "equal."
Examples of English words using iso:
Isotherm (Boundary of constant temperature)
Isobar (Boundary of constant pressure)
Isohyet
Isotope
Isoelectronic
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ISO is the acronym of the International Organization for Standardization, also known as International Standards Organization.
..... Click the link for more information. MPEG-4 MPEG-4, introduced in 1998, is the designation for a group of audio and video coding standards agreed upon by MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group). MPEG-4 is primarily designed to handle low bit rate content, from 4800 bit/s to approximately 4 Mbit/s. The primary uses for the MPEG-4 standard are web (streaming media) and CD distribution, conversational (videophone) uses, and broadcast television.
..... Click the link for more information. part 10. The final drafting work on the standard was completed in May of 2003.
More recently, the JVT has been working on a corrigendum (a list of errata corrections) to the original standard. The drafting work on the corrigendum should be completed in May of 2004.
In addition, the JVT is nearing completion of the development of some extensions to the original standard that are known as the Fidelity Range Extensions. These extensions will support higher-fidelity video coding by supporting increased sample accuracy (including 10-bit and 12-bit coding) and higher-resolution color information (including sampling structures known as 4:2:2 and 4:4:4). Several other features are also included in the Fidelity Range Extensions project. The drafting work on the Fidelity Range Extensions should be completed in the Summer of 2004.
H.264 is already widely used for videoconferencing, including its support in products of the two main companies in that market (Polycom and Tandberg). It has also been preliminarily adopted as a mandatory part of the future DVD specification known as HD-DVD, now under development by the DVD Forum. A number of broadcasters in Japan and Korea have announced future support for the codec, and it is under consideration for other broadcast use -- for example, it is under consideration in the United States' Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) and in Europe's Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) standards bodies. In the wireless world, it is under consideration for adoption by the 3rd-Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).
A tweaked variant of this codec is implemented in the form of the Sorenson codec The Sorenson codec (also known as Sorenson Video Codec 3 or SVQ3) is a digital video codec devised by the company Sorenson Media and used by Apple's QuickTime and the newest version of Macromedia Flash, a special version called Sorenson Spark.
The Sorenson codec first appeared in QuickTime 4, which was widely used for the first time at the release of the teaser trailer for on March 11, 1999.
..... Click the link for more information. , as was found by an FFmpeg FFmpeg is a set of open source computer programs that can record, convert and stream digital audio and video. It includes libavcodec, a leading audio/video codec library. FFmpeg is developed under Linux, but it can compile under most operating systems, including Windows. The project was started by Fabrice Bellard.
The project is made of several components:
ffmpeg is a command line tool to convert one video file format to another. It also supports grabbing and encoding in real time from a TV card.
..... Click the link for more information. developer working on reverse-engineering
Reverse engineering (RE) is the process of taking something (a device, an electrical component, a software program, etc.) apart and analyzing its workings in detail, and after that to reconstruct a new device/program/etc. that does the same thing, without actually copying anything from the original. The verb form is to reverse-engineer, spelled with a hyphen.
Reverse-engineering is commonly done to avoid copyrights on desired functionality, and may be used for avoiding patent law, though this is a bit risky: patents apply to the functionality, not a specific implementation of it.
..... Click the link for more information. the Sorenson codec.
QUALCOMM Announces Integration of the H.264 Video Codec Into Chipset Solutions
Monday March 22, 7:30 am ET
- H.264 Support in Qtv Solution Increases Revenue-Generating Opportunities for Wireless -
ATLANTA, CTIA Booth #3931, Hall B4, March 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- QUALCOMM Incorporated (Nasdaq: QCOM - News), pioneer and world leader of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) digital wireless technology, today announced that the company will integrate the H.264 baseline codec into QUALCOMM's Qtv(TM) video decoder solution. Now, consumers will be able to play back and stream H.264 content through wireless devices integrated with QUALCOMM's Qtv solution. H.264 is a next-generation codec that provides significantly improved compression capabilities, resulting in higher quality video streaming at lower bit rates. Support for this capability in the Qtv solution will be available in the second half of 2004, beginning with QUALCOMM's MSM6100(TM), MSM6250(TM) and MSM6500(TM) Mobile Station Modem(TM) (MSM(TM)) chipsets for the development of CDMA2000 and WCDMA (UMTS) products.
ADVERTISEMENT
"QUALCOMM continues to provide advanced video streaming, capture and telephony capabilities to the wireless industry," said Luis Pineda, vice president of marketing and product management for QUALCOMM CDMA Technologies. "Enabling our Qtv solution to decode H.264 media files increases the number of digital media standards supported by Qtv and creates additional revenue- generating opportunities for the wireless multimedia marketplace."
H.264 offers enhanced coding efficiency, making it an ideal codec for the limited bandwidth and memory capacity of the wireless multimedia environment. Integrating H.264 into QUALCOMM's fully-tested Qtv solution creates additional wireless multimedia opportunities for operators and content providers, provides faster time-to-market for multimedia-rich wireless handsets and helps accelerate the mass market adoption of wireless multimedia.
QUALCOMM's Qtv solution is a feature-rich software video decoder that enables mobile devices to stream, download and playback multimedia content. The Qtv solution is part of QUALCOMM's Launchpad(TM) suite of technologies, which encompasses advanced multimedia, connectivity, position location, user interface and removable storage capabilities.
QUALCOMM's Mobile Station Modem (MSM) family of chipsets provides handset manufacturers with a portfolio of solutions to address next-generation 3G handsets. These chipsets support major third-generation (3G) and second-generation (2G) worldwide wireless standards, and enable high resolution multimedia applications, including video, audio, graphics and enhanced 3D animation. The MSM chipsets are highly integrated, single-chip solutions that offer increased processing capacity combined with lower power consumption, resulting in an enhanced user experience.
QUALCOMM's chipsets include access to QUALCOMM's BREW(TM) solution. The BREW system enables the development and monetization of advanced applications and content, allowing operators and OEMs to differentiate their products and services and increase revenues. QUALCOMM's chipsets are also compatible with the Java® runtime environment; J2ME(TM) can be built entirely on the chipset as an extension to the BREW solution.
QUALCOMM Incorporated (www.qualcomm.com) is a leader in developing and delivering innovative digital wireless communications products and services based on the Company's CDMA digital technology. Headquartered in San Diego, Calif., QUALCOMM is included in the S&P 500 Index and is a 2003 FORTUNE 500® company traded on The Nasdaq Stock Market® under the ticker symbol QCOM.
Except for the historical information contained herein, this news release contains forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, including the Company's ability to successfully design and have manufactured significant quantities of CDMA components on a timely and profitable basis, the extent and speed to which CDMA is deployed, change in economic conditions of the various markets the Company serves, as well as the other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's SEC reports, including the report on Form 10-K for the year ended September 28, 2003, and most recent Form 10-Q.
QUALCOMM is a registered trademark of QUALCOMM Incorporated. Mobile Station Modem, MSM6100, MSM6250, MSM6500, MSM, Launchpad, BREW and Qtv are trademarks of QUALCOMM Incorporated. Java and J2ME are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
QUALCOMM Contacts:
Jennifer Bernas, QUALCOMM CDMA Technologies
Phone : 1-858-845-7571
E-mail: qct_publicrelations@qualcomm.com
or
Emily Gin, Corporate Public Relations
Phone: 1-858-651-4084
E-mail: publicrelations@qualcomm.com
or
Bill Davidson, Investor Relations
Phone: 1-858-658-4813
E-mail: ir@qualcomm.com
H.264 Video Codec Adopted for Next Generation DVDs
MPEG Developed Video Codec Key to Future High Definition DVDs
CUPERTINO, Calif., June 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Apple(R) today
announced that the DVD Forum has ratified the H.264 Advanced Video Codec (AVC)
to be included in the next generation High Definition (HD) DVD format. The
H.264/AVC codec was jointly developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group
(MPEG) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and has been
ratified into the MPEG-4 specification as the next-generation video codec.
H.264/AVC is based on open standards and will ship in Apple's QuickTime(R)
software in an upcoming release next year.
"Apple is firmly behind H.264 because it delivers superb quality digital
video and is based on open standards that no single company controls," said
Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.
"QuickTime 6 has already topped 250 million downloads, making it one of the
most successful media standards ever, and we will be adding support for H.264
to QuickTime next year."
H.264/AVC is an extremely scalable video codec, delivering excellent
quality across the entire bandwidth spectrum-from high definition television
to video conferencing and 3G mobile multimedia. As shown in a preview at the
National Association of Broadcasters convention in April, video encoded at
full high definition resolution (1920x1080 24p) was played back between 6.8
and 8 Mbps on a dual-processor Power Mac(R) G5 delivering full HD quality at
up to half the data rate of MPEG-2.
As the platform of choice for content creators worldwide, QuickTime
delivers the full media experience for thousands of unique software titles,
enhanced music CDs and hundreds of digital camera models. More than 250
million copies of QuickTime 6 have been downloaded in less than two years
since its release. According to Frost & Sullivan's 2004 Global Media Streaming
Platform Report, between 2002 and 2003 Microsoft's and Real Networks'
worldwide market share percentages were either stable or declining while
QuickTime's market share increased to 36.8 percent, a close second to
Microsoft. Real Networks came in third place with less than 25 percent of the
worldwide streaming market share. QuickTime 6.5, which also includes enhanced
support for 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and 3GPP2 mobile
networks, is available as a free download for Mac(R) and Windows users at
http://www.apple.com/quicktime.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple
II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Apple
is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students,
educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its
innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings.
NOTE: Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, Mac, Mac OS, QuickTime and Power
Mac are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Apple. Other company and
product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
VP6
Last update: 5 May 2004 / License: Freeware / Size: 1.62MB
VP6 is a high-quality, low bitrate video compression codec that can be used as a plug-in within any video processing application that is capable of utilizing third party codecs. The codec is free for personal/non-commercial use. Please read license agreement for further details.
On2 Technologies describes the codec as follows:
VP6 is the leading codec available for PC and set-top box applications, offering up to 40% better quality and 50% better playback performance than our revolutionary VP5 codec.
VP6 is the best video codec on the market today. It offers better image quality and faster decoding performance than Windows Media 9, RealVideo 10, H.264, and QuickTime MPEG-4.
In our internal testing, VP6 beat H.264, Windows Media 9 and Real Video 10 in PSNR comparisons using the standard set of MPEG-2 test clips. The codec looks better than Windows Media 9, shows far fewer motion artifacts than Windows Media 9, and maintains more texture and detail than Real 10 or H.264.
See samples provided by On2 Technologies to make up your own mind.
Features of VP6 6.2.0.10:
- Achieves a 10-15% improvement over previous versions of VP6.
- Supports multi-pass encoding.
- Highly configurable (constant or variable) datarate control.
- Added support for VP6.2, which produces much sharper output files than VP6.1.
- Improved frame quality consistency.
- Improved two-pass streaming.
- Many user interface improvements.
- Direct access to the reconstruction buffer.
- Improves Error recovery.
- Multiple platform support (Intel, Equator, TI, PowerPC).
- Compresses high-definition (HD) material with no restrictions on the encoder. VP6 can play back 1920x1080 HD material on a 2.5 GHz PC and 1280x720 material on a 1.5 GHz PC.
- Supports real-time encoding at full D1 resolution.
- Up to 40% image quality improvement over VP5.
- Up to 50% faster playback than VP5.
- Optimized to produce the best quality video available on high-resolution material (640x480 and higher).
- Designed for inexpensive DSP processors. VP6 is ideal for embedded chipsets in non-PC devices and set-top boxes. Unlike some standards-based codecs (JVT, MPEG-4 v10), VP6 runs on general-purpose DSPs without requiring expensive add-on subprocessors.
- VP6 is a purely software-based solution that can be upgraded easily.
- Includes predefined "profiles": Simple for fast playback on inexpensive processors, General for full D1 on set-top boxes, and Advanced for ensuring the best quality possible at extremely low datarates.
- Achieves any requested data rate by choosing automatically to adjust quantization levels, adjust encoded frame dimensions, or drop frames altogether.
- Carries no burdensome "patent pooling" restrictions or complicated external licensing fees.
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/VP6.htm
Meeyoung Cha
PhD Student
Advanced Networking Lab
Dept. of Computer Science KAIST
mycha@an.kaist.ac.kr
CS441 Project Presentation
QoS for Premium VoIP service
using Path Diversity
Case Studies: H.264 MPEG-4 oriented QoS
Video Conferencing
Other Applications: Broadcast Digital TV, Wi-Fi network
PolyCom VSX7000
Video Conferencing
To overcome bandwidth constrains, to respond growing standards of video quality, video conferencing equipment vendors are accepting H.264 as industry standards
Improvements in Video Conferencing, H. 264
- With video conference standards (ex: NTSC: 480lines by 720pix @ 30fps) required bandwidth is reduced by half: H.264(384kbps), H.263(768kbps)
- List of featured improvement from H.263:
- Intra Placement - Parameter Sets
- Picture Segmentation - Flexible Marcoblock Ordering
- Reference Picture Selection - RSs
- Data Partitioning
Remarks
- With improvements listed above, MPEG-4 part10 (ISO/IEC 14496-10) custom for H.264 optimizes slicing of MPEG coding. Thus QoS concentration in MPEG slicing will have relatively valuable result than a case without those features; ex H.263 and other older standards.
- Prior to H.264 introduction, adaptation of H.263 generally created problems of inter-operating of different equipment vendors; with H.263 there were over a million possible protocol combinations, making it impossible to accept common infra such as boarder QoS by ISP. Meanwhile introduction of H.264 and market adaptation creates window for common infra service/applications. Thus such model as premium QoS by ISP became more rational.
Other Applications
With H.264 standard, especially with improvements in MPEG codec options, there already exists commercial considerations of QoS
Mobile Streaming QoS by HP Labs (May 2003)
- Overview: end-to-end media delivery over diverse clients for wired and wireless networks
- List of Collaborations:
NTT DoCoMo Japan, NTT DoCoMo USA, Standford, MIT, Berkeley, William and Mary, HP
- Key Issues regarding QoS
- With Combination of Multiple description video coding with Path Diversity, they were able to make significant improvements in burst loss handling and distortion predictions.
*Path diversity is only considered in Network Layer. Thus further considerations of path diversity with Transport and application custom optimization can be considered.
Remarks
- Above is an example of boarder edge-to-edge premium QoS, and shows the market demands and commercial considerations: meanwhile VoIP does not yet have standard such as H.264, more study and optimization is left as standardization further develops.
- Because of such QoS merits and standardization like H.264, many bandwidth constrained applications are rapidly adopting such standards:
Ex: High Definition TV, Mobile Digital Terrestrial Broadcasting
“TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 23, 2004--In a joint press conference with MPEG LA today, Japan broadcasters NHK, TBS, NTV, TV Asahi, Fuji TV and TV Tokyo announce their adoption of AVC/H.264 Video Coding for mobile segment digital terrestrial broadcasting.” ( businesswire.com MAR 23,2004 )
Form 10QSB for ON2 TECHNOLOGIES INC
22-Jul-2004
Quarterly Report
...........
A potential trend that we are currently monitoring is the possible emergence of H.264 as a competitor in the video compression field. H.264 is a standards-based codec that is the successor to MPEG-4. Although we believe our technology is superior to H.264, H.264 may become widely adopted by potential customers because, as a standards-based codec, there are numerous developers programming to the H.264 standard and developing products based on suchstandard. In addition, there are certain customers that prefer to license standards-based codecs.
===========================
Cover Story: H.264 to Displace MPEG in Video Compression
The H.264 high-efficiency coding standard for video achieves a data compression ratio two to three times higher than that of MPEG-2, and twice that of MPEG-4.
A new video encoding method nicknamed the "mammoth Codec" is attracting the attention of engineers in a wide range of equipment development sectors. The primary reason is the high data compression ratio, significantly better than that offered by existing Moving Picture Coding Experts Group Phase 2 (MPEG-2) or MPEG-4 Visual schemes. Many authorities working on international standards for encoding technology feel that little further improvement can be expected in the compression ratio, making the new technique a trump card that closes out the current series of MPEG-based Codecs, which began with MPEG-1 (Fig 1).
Development began on the mammoth Codec with the overriding goal of achieving the highest possible compression ratio. Developers tried a variety of methods for high-efficiency coding of video data, applying large-scale encoding tools and complex processing. And the resulting scale and complexity earned the new technique the "mammoth" nickname from members of the International Telecommunication Union, Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) working on it. Joint standardization on the encoding scheme has been essentially completed by the ITU-T and International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC), and now it is stepping up to center stage under a new name: H.264/MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding (AVC).
Coding Efficiency
The evaluations of engineers involved in standardization and implementation processes indicate that the data compression ratio of H.264 is 2 to 3 times higher than the MPEG-2 used in current DVD systems, and 1.5 to 2 times higher than MPEG-4. For the same image quality as DVD the new technique can be achieved at a coding rate of about 2Mbps, or 1Mbps for image quality equivalent to a home-use video cassette recorder (VCR), as shown in Fig 2.
H.264 imagery is now being evaluated by standards organizations and exhibition visitors. At the general meeting in Hawaii, December 8 to 12, 2003, the standards body presented a report on the verification test used for subjective evaluation of imagery coded and decoded by the H.264 Codec. Professionals from broadcasting, standardization and other fields packed the studio to produce the evaluation data used in the report.
"H.264 was found to be superior at all resolutions. Regardless of the content of the test image, it maintained that image quality when the coding rate was dropped to about half. In some cases, MPEG-2 encoding required a coding rate of 6Mbps to match the image quality achieved by H.264 running at 1.5Mbps," said one video encoding engineer present at the meeting.
H.264 has demonstrated that real performance is just what preliminary results indicated it would be. Utilizing the technology in actual products and services will vastly reduce the capacity needed to reduce video, and allow data transfer rates to be dropped. While MPEG-2 is the most common approach in digital broadcasting, and MPEG-4 in video distribution for mobile phones, H.264 is likely to be used first in applications demanding even higher compression rates.
More and more application sectors are clamoring for H.264, such as mobile phone video. A variety of new equipment is appearing to offer for mobile video, including mobile phones, digital cameras and personal servers, and the pixel counts of imaging devices are soaring. Video image quality is fast approaching the level of camcorders, and display resolution is rising to keep pace. As users become capable of easily shooting video, video content is becoming much more common. Crucial semiconductor memory capacity, however, cannot keep up with the speed of evolution in video, leading to more and more mobile gear with internal hard disk drives (HDD), even at the cost of bulk.
Another key application sector is networks. Both wireless and wired networks are tending towards best-effort type transfer rates, where speeds are not assured. In asynchronous digital subscriber lines (ADSL), for example, the difference in peak data transfer rates between short-haul and long-haul links is widening fast. This means that even though you pay the same amount for video distribution service, image quality will drop with distance. If the entire network is matched to distant users, then near-by users cannot utilize high-speed data transfer at all. H.264 fills this gap neatly.
The high data coding efficiency of H.264 can be used in products now, without waiting for next-generation technologies, and it is already being tapped in the optical disk sector. Sony Computer Entertainment Inc (SCE) of Japan will be using H.264 video encoding in the PSP, the portable game system now being developed. H.264 is also being considered for use in the HD DVD next-generation optical disk standard using blue-violet laser light sources, and the HD DVD9 standard designed to make it possible to store two hours of high-definition TV (HDTV) video on existing single-sided, 2-layer DVD media.
SCE adopted H.264 in its PSP game platform because it enabled them to fit about two hours of video, the equivalent of a DVD-quality movie, onto only one of the UMD optical disks the firm uses, 6cm in diameter and with a capacity of 1.8 Gbytes. Even with MPEG-4 Visual the same data would require about 3.6 Gbytes of capacity.
Developers of play-only media for HD DVD and HD DVD9 are taking advantage of high-efficiency coding to accelerate their timetables for commercialization and widespread adoption in the market. One key reason is that existing DVD manufacturing technology can be easily adapted.
With existing MPEG-2 technology, about 20 Gbytes is needed to store a 2-hour HDTV movie. In the HD DVD standard, the single-sided capacity of the play-only disk was set to 15 Gbytes, specifically to match the capabilities of the photolithography systems used to manufacture current DVD media. HD DVD9 uses single-sided, 2-layer 8.5 Gbyte DVD media, and the manufacturing technology has already been completed.
Equaling Video Cameras
Another application hoping to accelerate plans through high-efficiency coding is digital cameras. As Nobuhide Dotsubo, general manager, Engineering Department 2, Technical Engineering BUDI Solutions Co, Consumer Group, Sanyo Electric Co, Ltd of Japan said, "We want to make use of an encoding technology with a higher data compression ratio so we can achieve longer recording times for a given storage capacity. We are using MPEG-4 now, but we are not wed to it." Video photography is now on a par with camcorders, at video graphics array (VGA) resolution, or 640 pixels x 480 pixels, and 30 frames/s. Camcorders, however, still have the advantage when it comes to recording time.
Sanyo Electric is a leader in the fusion of digital can video cameras, and the firm1s DMX-C1 released in November 2003 adopted MPEG-4 encoding instead of the prior Motion JPEG in order to achieve a 30 frames/s rate. A 30-minute video, however, requires a 512-Mbyte SD memory card, with a street price of \25,000 to \30,000. A recording time of 60 minutes, equivalent to DV tape, will demand either one of the 1-Gbyte cards slated for release in the near future, or poorer image quality. While the bit cost of compact memory cards is dropping, a high-efficiency coding scheme like H.264 should make it possible to store 60 minutes of video in a smaller capacity.
Mobile phones, where video photography functions are rapidly becoming standard, will run into the same problem eventually. Resolution, frame speed and other capabilities are pretty much on a par with those of digital cameras, with mobile phones shooting quarter VGA (QVGA) imagery at 320 pixels x 240 pixels and 15 frames/s.
Performance is still rising sharply. Of the Freedom Of Multimedia Access (FOMA) 3G handsets announced on December 18, 2003 by NTT DoCoMo, Inc of Japan, for example, the D900i from Mitsubishi Electric Corp can shoot QVGA imagery at 24 frames/s. A growing number of handsets can be connected to TV sets to view video, and it is likely the demand for higher-fidelity imagery will continue to rise.
95% of All Households
With H.264 the performance differences imposed on the network by distance will be effectively eliminated. About 75% of broadband access in Japan is handled by ADSL, with a subscriber base of over 10 million. The peak data transfer rate is still rising, and has already reached 40Mbps. ADSL, however, is a best-effort service, and does not assure any data rate floor, so that only a very lucky few actually enjoy this 40Mbps performance. With H.264 it would be possible to distribute DVD-quality imagery at even 2Mbps. This would reach some 4 to 5km from the centers, covering about 95% of all households in Japan.
Even with wireless, performance is dependent on distance from the basestation, and because communication rates vary with environmental conditions, service is best-effort for existing Personal Handyphone System (PHS), NTT DoCoMo1s FOMA, CDMA2000 1x EV-DO service from KDDI Corp (au) of Japan, and VGS service from Vodafone KK of Japan. Better display resolution is improving image rendition across-the-board while H.264 offers the potential to maintain high image quality and frame rates even at higher resolutions.
Licensing, Compatibility
Widespread adoption of H.264 will require international standardization and assurance of compatibility. Some of these issues are already on the verge of resolution.
Standardization is advancing on two fronts: HD DVD and HD DVD9 standards within the DVD Forum, and terrestrial digital broadcasting for mobile equipment. The state of progress differs depending on licensing conditions.
H.264 is a leading candidate for use in HD DVD and HD DVD9, along with Windows Media Video (WMV) from Microsoft Corp of the US, a hybrid of MPEG-2 and H.264, and MPEG-2 itself. On November 17, 2003, MPEG LA, LLC of the US announced licensing conditions for H.264, and seems to have broken the logjam on standard selection. Image evaluation is complete, and the steering committee is now ready to make the final decision on what the DVD Forum will use. The decision was put off in the past because the licensing conditions for H.264 were not nailed down.
Assuming that the DVD Forum selects H.264 and decoding chips begin appearing in DVD players, H.264 seems likely to spread rapidly. No doubt DVD recorders with internal HDDs will begin switching over to H.264 video encoding, and a range of transcoding ICs capable of converting between H.264 and other formats, like MPEG-2, will be needed.
While the licensing fees paid by audio-visual (AV) equipment manufacturers for coding and decoding chips will rise, they are still only about a tenth the cost of MPEG-2 (Fig 3). DVD recorders and other video recording systems are likely to incorporate networking functions in the near future, and will probably offer decoder or Codec chips capable of handling multiple encoding schemes, which will tend to lower the relative weight of H.264 licensing fees.
Debate Continues
In terrestrial digital broadcasting for mobile phones, however, H.264 is merely one of many possibilities. It attracted considerable attention as an encoding scheme that might replace MPEG-4, especially when it was thought that the baseline profile licensing fee might be dropped to zero when MPEG LA asked broadcasters to pay fees for MPEG-4.
The situation changed, however, when MPEG LA announced H.264 licensing conditions. While they may be cheaper than MPEG-4 in some cases, they did not change their intention to collect licensing fees from broadcasters.
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), an organization of broadcasters in Europe, immediately released a statement opposing the fee, launching rising opposition to the proposed new standard. Japanese industry has also been taken aback, and although one source in the terrestrial digital broadcasting field commented: "We really have to make a decision in the first half of 2004 to be in time for the scheduled start of broadcasting," it remains unclear whether that decision will be for H.264 or not.
WMV9 Emerges as Rival
One strong rival has emerged in terrestrial digital broadcasting for HD DVD and mobile gear: WMV9. While results vary with the specific type of video being handled, it is thought to achieve approximately the same coding efficiency as H.264.
One of the attractive features of H.264 is that it is an international standard with open specs, but Microsoft is changing its traditional monopolistic strategy to open the technology. The firm has firmed up the WMV9 decoding technology and disclosed it to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE). It is possible that an improved version of the coder may be developed, but Microsoft says imagery will still be able to be played back on a WMV9 decoder.
The strength of being an international standard has not eroded from H.264, however, and already a number of AV equipment manufacturers have expressed concerns about WMV9 based on the fact that it was a proprietary technology. As a source at one such firm pointed out, "It is not at all clear whether licensing fees will be paid to Microsoft or not. It is possible that when the technology is made open it may turn out that technology patented by other firms is included." In response, Microsoft replied that it hasn1t been decided yet, although it believes that only its own patents are involved.
Compatibility Issues
Another barrier that will have to be overcome before H.264 can achieve widespread use is assuring compatibility (Fig 4). In international standards, it is quite common for the official specification to be interpreted differently by different parties, and that would lead to mutually-incompatible encoders and decoders. Assuring compatibility is unusually difficult for H.264 because it makes use of so many coding tools and modes.
The absolute minimum testing is just about completed for commercialization, specifically (1) confirmation of stream-level compatibility, (2) definition of stream structure, and (3) definition of file structure.
Concerning stream-level compatibility (1), Teruhiko Suzuki, senior signal processing researcher, Imaging Technology Center, IMNC at Sony Corp of Japan commented, "We have been checking H.264 functions through stream conversion, one at a time, and are almost done." Verification of version 1 of the standard proposal is under way, with vague portions being rewritten and new detail added: basically, engineers are fixing bugs. The new, bug-free version is expected to be done in the first half of 2004.
The definition of stream structure, (2), is necessary for use in digital broadcasting and optical disks. In digital broadcasting, H.264 is broken down into MPEG-2 transport streams for storage, or MPEG-2 program streams for optical disks and similar equipment. This structure was finalized in October 2003.
The file format (3) required for use in PCs and like systems was finalized at the same time, as an extended version of the MP4 format used in MPEG-4. A draft proposal has also been submitted for the real-time transport protocol (RTP) needed to transport H.264 streams over the Internet, and is currently awaiting approval.
by Masayuki Arai, and Hirotaka Ito
Websites:
DVD Forum: http://www.dvdforum.org
ITU-T: http://www.itu.int/ITU-T
MPEG LA: http://www.mpegla.com
SCE: http://www.scei.co.jp/global/index_e.html
SMPTE: http://www.smpte.org
(April 2004 Issue, Nikkei Electronics Asia)
Fusion Digital Technology Ltd 19 Apr 2004
Fusion Reveal Pioneering New Products at Mediacast 2004
Fusion Digital Technology Ltd will be demonstrating a host of innovative consumer electronics products at this year’s Mediacast. Since the company’s formation last year, Fusion have developed cost effective, added-value solutions for pay TV operators as well as new ‘vision’ and ‘portable’ product ranges for the UK and European marketplace.
Fusion have identified key features for pay TV services to increase revenue streams and reduce churn. This includes a dual decode solution, enabling subscribers to watch 2 different channels on 2 televisions in different rooms simultaneously from just one set top box. With the introduction of IPTV services for cable operators across the globe, a pioneering Videophone will also be exhibited on the stand. Using H.264 compression, it allows high quality video calls at 12 frames per second, with a target retail price of less than €200.
As integrated hard disk technology has begun to revolutionise the digital TV landscape, Fusion have developed Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) for both pay TV and free-to-air markets, from an entry-level box with a 40 Gb hard drive, to a higher capacity 250 Gb unit, capable of storing over 250 hours of programming.
A leading edge Portable Personal Video Recorder (PPVR) is just part of the exciting new ‘portable’ portfolio from Fusion. With an integrated 20/40 Gb hard drive and back-lit LCD screen, the unit offers ‘personal TV on the move’, enabling music and video content to be downloaded from a set top box.
Fusion’s comprehensive range of stylish integrated LCD TVs will also be on display, featuring built-in DVD and hard disk combinations for increased functionality.
Amongst a variety of free-to-air receivers for digital satellite and terrestrial platforms, Fusion’s entry-level boxes now offer innovative features such as rewind TV, with second generation models including twin tuners and expandable hard disk drives to allow flexible viewing and recording options.
Fusion’s Chief Executive Barry Rubery commented, ‘It’s been a demanding but exciting first year for Fusion. Our combination of commercial acumen, market awareness and world class engineering has enabled us to produce a portfolio of cutting edge solutions that clearly demonstrates our entry into the consumer electronics arena. We’re currently in discussions to supply products to pay TV operators, distributors and retailers worldwide, many of which I look forward to meeting at this year’s Mediacast.”
To view these innovative solutions, in addition to new products shortly to be announced, please visit Fusion Digital Technology on Stand D12 at Mediacast ExCel, London, 25-27 May 2004.
For further information, or to arrange interviews at Mediacast contact:
Diane Mckaye on Tel: + 44 (0) 7771 926726
e-mail: d.mckaye@fusiondigitec.com
Notes
Fusion Digital Technology Ltd design, manufacture and supply innovative digital consumer electronics products for the international marketplace. The range includes both free to air and pay TV digital receivers for satellite, cable and terrestrial platforms alongside integrated LCD and plasma televisions. Fusion is a joint venture between industry pioneer Barry Rubery, founder and former Chief Executive of Pace Micro Technology plc, together with one of Europe’s largest consumer electronics manufacturers Beko Elektronik A.S. With its headquarters in Harrogate, North England, Fusion manufactures its products from its affiliated plants in Turkey.
Slowly, Radio Stations Shift to Digital Broadcasts
By Jube Shiver Jr.
Times Staff Writer
March 8, 2004
WASHINGTON — Three decades ago, Jim Watkins counted himself among radio's pioneers when he helped convert urban contemporary station WHUR-FM to stereo.
Watkins, now general manager of the 24,000-watt station here, is embracing new technology again. This time, it's high-definition digital broadcasts, which boast CD-quality sound and allow stations to transmit extras like real-time stock prices and sports scores to special receivers.
The rollout this year of digital broadcasts at stations across the country caps a 20-year evolution. Disc jockeys long ago dumped vinyl records and audio tape in favor of digital compact discs and computer hard drives, but the last major change in broadcasting was when stations switched to stereo in the 1960s and '70s.
"Digital radio, Watkins said, "will have an even bigger impact."
Maybe. But it may take awhile. Watkins acknowledges that WHUR's $50,000 digital transformation so far can be appreciated by fewer than two dozen people in the area who have shelled out $400 or more for digital receivers.
It's much the same story nationwide as stations invest in new technology and wait for an audience to justify the new gear.
About 80 of the nation's 13,000 stations — including KKBT-FM, KTNQ-AM, KSCA-FM and KROQ-FM in Los Angeles — are broadcasting in digital, which was approved by the Federal Communications Commission in October 2002.
"It's a fundamental change, like the shift from black-and-white TV to color," said Bob Struble, president of IBiquity Digital Corp., a Columbia, Md.-based company that developed and licenses the technology in the United States. "Virtually every other consumer electronics product has already gone digital. Now it's radio's turn."
Investors in IBiquity include automaker Ford Motor Co., chip manufacturer Texas Instruments Inc., Walt Disney Co.'s ABC Radio Networks, Clear Channel Communications Inc., Viacom Inc. and 12 other broadcasters.
So far, digital radio's debut seems smoother than that of high-definition television, a digital standard that languished for years after the FCC approved it in the mid-1990s. HDTV's adoption has been hampered by high equipment prices and a protracted industry squabble with the government over the transfer of new airwaves needed to carry the signals.
Radio broadcasters avoided similar problems by agreeing to broadcast digital radio over the same airwaves they use now. And they waited to launch the service until the price of consumer digital technology fell. Analysts expect prices for digital radio receivers to tumble, perhaps by as much as 75% in the next 18 months.
Also, it's cheaper for radio stations to convert from analog to digital — $30,000 to $100,000, compared with $1 million or more for television stations to upgrade.
"Why should radio be the dinosaurs?" WHUR's Watkins asked as he demonstrated a Kenwood HD receiver in a promotional van parked outside the station's studios.
Experts say digital technology will give traditional radio broadcasters better ammunition to battle an invasion of digital MP3 music players as well as fast-growing alternatives like XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., based in Washington, and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. in New York. Those two companies beam subscription digital content from satellites. Unlike traditional free radio stations, whose signals travel only a few dozen miles or so, satellite services have national reach and have attracted 1.6 million paying customers.
"Clearly, the adoption of digital radio is several years off," but HD radio promises to deliver "major sound quality enhancements" to both FM and AM radio and "allow AM radio to become a more viable music service," said Peter Doyle, audio division chief at the FCC.
Some advertising agencies are eagerly anticipating the technology, especially the text features that could allow a marketer to display a toll-free number or website address while a commercial is running.
"Advertisers are always looking for upgrades," said Irene Katsnelson, director of network radio at Universal McCann, whose clients include Coca-Cola Co., General Motors Corp. and American Airlines.
As seven years of blistering radio industry consolidation winds down, experts say, traditional radio's digital upgrade looms as either the biggest opportunity since the introduction of FM stereo or the latest in a string of sonic innovations rejected by consumers.
The failures include four-channel "quadraphonic sound" in the mid-1970s and AM stereo in the early 1980s.
Radio content is likely to trump sound quality as the key to whether high-definition radio succeeds, experts say.
"Sound quality is only part of the equation," said Michael Gartenberg, a technology analyst at Jupiter Research in Darien, Conn. If HD radio "wants to avoid the same fate as AM stereo and quadraphonic sound, it has got to find compelling content, get the pricing of the equipment down and get the product integrated into automobiles."
That may be tough given the head start enjoyed by satellite radio, which already has deals with most of the major automakers and consumer electronics manufacturers. Although analysts forecast that as many as 4 million digital radios will be sold in 2007, that's only a tiny fraction of the 36.4 million analog radios, and not much beyond the more than 500,000 satellite radios, the Consumer Electronics Assn. says were sold last year.
"Usually we only can afford to do a new radio when we have a [car] model update," said Tom Wilkinson, General Motors' spokesman for corporate technology. That means at least a three- to four-year wait, he said.
Wilkinson added that some of digital radio's features could have a strong appeal for consumers and advertisers. He cited his 12-year-old daughter, who likes using the limited text feature on analog radios that displays artists and song titles on certain radios equipped with a display panel.
Nathan Franzen, a system engineer in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who was one of the first people to buy a digital radio system, is an unabashed fan.
"I've had mine for almost two months now and I totally love it," Franzen said.
That sort of reaction is no surprise to Watkins, whose WHUR last month became the city's first and only station to broadcast high-definition radio.
"A lot of people think high-definition radio is for musical purists and audiophiles," he said, "but this technology is going to take off because the listening public is acclimated to digital technology now."
Anyone read the Press Release reporting the financials posted at On2 and dated today? Here's an abstract with a couple of interesting items included regarding customers.
We are disappointed that certain customer deployments and the E-world chip port have been pushed out into future quarters and that our lack of control over the process of releasing products caused slower revenue recognition than we anticipated," said Douglas A. McIntyre, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. "However, we are very happy with a number of our accomplishments. Among other things, during 2003, On2 signed licensing agreements with Sony, AOL, Electronic Arts, PerfecTV, Stark, Platypus video conferencing using VP6 and Mobilecast. It also licensed the VP6 codec through Quicklink to ABC, the BBC, and the Press Association."
"The company also launched a personal use only license for VP6, which has now driven over 100,000 downloads. During the last year, On2 has entered into arrangements with several companies that give the VP5 and VP6 encoder a level of distribution that the company has not enjoyed before. On2 is now the premier video codec in the Viewpoint player, which has an estimated distribution of 120 million PCs. The On2 family of codecs (VP3, VP5, and VP6) are the premium codecs in the new Nullsoft Winamp 5 player. This product has been downloaded by tens of millions of people. The new AOL Media Player also contains On2's VP5 codec. At the beginning of 2003, we had none of this distribution," Mr. McIntyre concluded.
As previously announced, the company has retained the Navellier Dynamic Opportunities Fund, L.P. to assist the company with corporate advisory and M&A work. The Navellier Dynamic Opportunities Fund, L.P. is part of the Alternative Investment Group at Navellier & Associates and focuses on both public and private investments in the small to mid-cap area. "We are looking for strategically important, accretive transactions to come from our efforts in this arena," said Timothy Reusing, EVP of Business Affairs for On2.
"With the well received launch of VP6.2 and continued positive adoption by developers, our momentum from last year has continued into 2004," said Eric Ameres, On2's EVP of Software Development and CTO. "In the last week we have licensed our software to SecuryCast Oy of Finland for use in a VOD deployment and a large Chinese developer of video surveillance and consumer electronics products and have entered into a binding letter of intent with a Korean company to use our software in an exciting range of video products," Mr. Ameres added.
The company said that in the coming months it plans to launch a VP6 Java player, a Quicktime implementation and add more advanced features for its new newsgathering software.
"We have made some great progress in the last year and a half and we have had some setbacks as well, but on balance I am highly optimistic about 2004 and the years beyond," concluded Mr. McIntyre.
Blu-Ray group investigation
A "preliminary inquiry" into the activities of the Blu-ray group, founded by Sony Corp, Matsushita Electric Industrial, Philips Electronics NV and seven other major electronics companies, has been launched by the US Justice Department.
It "comes as companies are competing to establish a new DVD format for playing movies in high-definition video, which requires far more storage space than the standard movies on today's discs," says Reuters here, quoting the Wall Street Journal.
Someone person "close to the DVD Forum", an official standards-setting body for DVDs that includes hardware and software companies, said the DoJ is wondering whether or nor the group's members "potentially acted to impede the forum's technical progress," according to the report.
China, in the meanwhile, says it plans to replace DVDs with a "home-developed" next-generation disc format called EVD (enhanced versatile disc)which could challenge the 'Blue Ray' a next-generation disc technology being jointly developed by global electronics companies such as Sony, et al.
(Monday 26th January 2004)
Is Japan losing its tech edge to East Asian rivals?
By Peter Morris
Once on the global cutting edge of virtually all things technological, Japan's high-tech industry appears to be losing its edge, showing signs of wear and tear and flagging innovation.
After a failed satellite launch and a slew of cyber-security problems ranging from faulty automated teller machines (ATMs) to personal information leaks on its popular Yahoo! DSL (digital subscriber line) service, Japan is doing some soul-searching on the state of its high-tech industry and trying to galvanize the sector into once again being the world's leader. That may not be possible, at least not in the near future.
The Nihon Keizai Shimbun recently reported that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is considering establishing a new ministry that would reformulate - and reinvigorate - Japan's information-technology (IT) policies. Koizumi also aims to enter the new space race. After China's successful manned space flight and US President George W Bush's announced plans to send Americans to Mars, Koizumi has decided to revamp his country's flagging space program and send Japanese astronauts into orbit.
And last Thursday, the government kicked off an important Internet public service for its citizens, who now can file tax returns and apply for passports online. The government also will accept payments for certain administrative fees, such as patent filings and labor insurance, via ATMs or Internet banking.
Japanese society often appears to be synchronized, and so it's no surprise that the government, by promoting a national reinvigoration of the tech industry, has also encouraged colleges and corporations to renovate their approaches to technology - and keep Japan in the forefront of technological creativity and development. These moves are expected to help Japan maintain its dominant role in the global automotive and consumer-electronics industries, among others.
Because of its restrictive immigration policies and a dearth of qualified tech professionals, Japanese IT firms and universities alike are tripping one another in pursuit of young, tech-savvy students. For the first time, top-ranking Keio University is offering full-tuition, merit-based scholarships in order to attract the best incoming freshmen. Last Wednesday, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd launched its "entrepreneur" recruitment program, mainly targeting new college graduates. The aim is to create new businesses and promote entrepreneurship in Japan.
Too little, too late?
In some respects, Koizumi's move to renovate and energize Japanese technology may be too little, too late.
Back in 2000, Japan took the first major step toward becoming an e-commerce nation by passing the IT Basic Bill. The law calls for an "electronic government" through the creation of a broadband-network infrastructure, the promotion of e-commerce and the protection of secure networks and private information. The law was intended to help companies bypass the 733 regulations and 124 laws that were inhibiting expansion of Japan's e-commerce, and it has facilitated the development of intriguing ventures in cyberspace. One example: on March 20, Yamaha Corp will begin selling electronic organs that can be connected to the Internet. Still, despite some advances and removal of some of the regulatory underbrush, galvanizing the IT sector still faces quite a few obstacles.
For example, despite strides in the lucrative mobile commerce market, Japan's "m-commerce" industry still lags behind that of South Korea. Furthermore, the expansion of Japan's broadband infrastructure, critical to nurturing an Internet-savvy population, has been hampered by government regulations. Another barrier to e-commerce in Japan is the lack of widespread credit-card ownership.
Japan is still very much a cash society, and even credit-card holders are often reluctant to give away their card numbers online because of the widespread perception that it is not safe. This perception was reinforced after a security lapse at Yahoo! Japan, one of the country's most popular DSL providers, compromised some users' personal information.
Finally, advocates of better high tech in Japan have called for more foreign professionals to give a boost to the industry. Their urgings, however, have mostly fallen on deaf ears, as the country's homogeneous society is reluctant to encourage immigration and open what some fear might be the floodgates of demographic and cultural change.
The government's campaign to introduce technology into virtually all aspects of daily life is regarded by some not as a way to improve efficiency, but as an attempt to maintain the country's technological edge over Japan's East Asian rivals, China and South Korea.
Korea has better Internet penetration, broadband
Over the past decade, Japan's East Asian neighbors have been making strides in the IT arena and have surpassed Japan on a number of IT fronts. Internet penetration in South Korea is much higher than in Japan, and Seoul boasts one of the most sophisticated broadband networks on the planet. Japan's personal-computer (PC) and broadband penetration is still very low, and many people are still using slow dial-up services.
South Korea also has surpassed Japan in other tech industries, including liquid crystal displays (LCDs), semiconductors and mobile technology. Samsung and LG are now leaders in the ultra-competitive global consumer-electronics market, and even Korean video-game makers are making inroads into the market at the expense of their Japanese rivals, particularly in China, where Korean video games are hot.
Greater China - including mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong - is gearing up to supplant both South Korea and Japan as the center of Asia's consumer-electronics industry, both on the production and development sides. After acquiring a majority stake in TCL-Thomson Electronics, a joint venture between TCL and Thomson SA of France, China's TCL International Holdings Ltd is now the world's largest television maker. China is also developing its own standards for the next generation of cellular phones and digital video disc (DVD) players, and it is fine-tuning its software industry to cater not only to the promising Chinese market but also to the lucrative international software market.
Moreover, Japanese companies have set up numerous research and development centers in China to take advantage of the large number of Chinese engineers who cost a fraction of their high-priced Japanese counterparts, and these facilities are developing products both for the domestic market and for export. The integrated-circuit foundry industry is also red-hot in China, where local companies are designing and fabricating tailor-made semiconductors to be used in mobile devices under international brand names such as Intel, Nokia and Fujitsu. However, companies face pitfalls in doing business in China - notably the loss of intellectual property.
In a New York Times article on January 13, Steven Lohr described efforts by the Chinese government to use its own standards for the next generation of technology products, such as cell phones and DVD players. China is developing software standards for wireless computers and tax policies favoring computer chips destined for the Chinese consumer market. The global semiconductor industry is protesting a Chinese tax that is nearly 14 percent higher on imported computer chips than on those designed or manufactured in China. The higher tax rate applies to chips used in products sold to the Chinese market but does not apply to exports.
China's encryption demands, regulations daunting
Even more disconcerting to Japanese tech companies is a new regulation, announced in December, that will require foreign companies to use Chinese encryption software and to co-produce their goods with a designated list of Chinese companies when selling wireless devices to Chinese consumers. The Times article notes: "Foreign computer makers, led by American companies, have protested the decision. In addition to their concern about the separate standard, foreign companies are worried about the possible loss of intellectual property if they are forced to work with Chinese companies that have the potential to become competitors."
These new regulations will have the biggest impact on "wi-fi" (wireless fidelity) devices that permit short-range wireless connections to the Internet. Beijing insists that wi-fi regulations are necessary to safeguard national security, as encryption codes for communications are critical to a country's security. Experts in China and abroad have routinely emphasized the need for improved security for data communications. But critics outside of China say that wi-fi communications do not pose a security risk because they only extend a few hundred feet, and that China's national standards are in essence regulations designed to inhibit foreign companies from taking a big slice of the Chinese wi-fi market.
Aside from developing its own wi-fi standard, China is actively promoting open-source computing to reduce its dependence on Microsoft Windows, and is even developing its own standard for DVD players. The Chinese standard for the next generation of DVD players and discs, called EVD (enhanced versatile disc), is expected to have four or five times the storage capacity of current DVDs, but will not be widely available until at least 2005.
China hopes to avoid steep royalty payments to patent-holding corporations in Japan, the United States and Europe by creating its own technology, but it will face intense competition. Two separate consortiums of Japanese companies, one led by NEC and another headed by Sony, are already in the final stages of developing their own next-generation DVD standards.
To be sure, "Japan Inc" has realized that in order to stay competitive in the global economy, it is crucial to tie up with other companies, whether they are Japanese or foreign. Sony Ericsson is one of the more notable examples; the Swedish-Japanese mobile-phone maker, after struggling from losses due to increased competition in the mobile-phone industry, surprised analysts by swinging into profit in the final quarter of 2003 on strong sales of phones equipped with cameras and games.
In fact, there have been a string of tie-ups between European and Japanese high-tech companies in recent weeks, including an agreement to develop a unified standard and equipment for security products, such as face and fingerprint recognition based on biometric technology. Finally, on January 23, Hitachi said it had concluded an agreement with Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Telecooperation in Germany to develop technologies to help users validate digital signatures without being hampered by different infrastructure environments used in various countries.
In addition to cooperating with foreign companies, Japan will need to start importing foreign labor if it really wants to stay competitive in the global IT industry. Whether the Japanese like it or not, opening the door to foreign workers is not a question of if, but when. Otherwise, in the near future, Japanese employees might need to start looking for high-tech jobs in China and South Korea.
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