Multimedia Format Contest Continues
Two pending formats aim to make it easier to move discs among different devices.
Martyn Williams, IDG News Service
Thursday, November 13, 2003
Your music collection is finally digital. You've ripped your 200 favorite CDs to MP3 files and love the way you can build playlists or instantly call up favorites from your personal database of 2000 songs. Setting out for the weekend, you copy 100 of your favorite songs onto a CD-R, pop it into your car's new MP3 CD player, and smile--until you realize your car player isn't half as intelligent as your PC. You must either remember 100 track numbers or hit "next" or "back" to navigate your music.
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Even if you haven't yet faced this problem, it's increasingly likely as more people burn their own multimedia CDs and more consumer electronics devices gain the capability to read such data. Many CD players play MP3 files as well as audio CDs, and some DVD players can run JPEG slide shows along with movies. Televisions are also changing, with the most modern models able to show movies or images stored on memory cards.
While this enhances the convergence of the PC and your living room, problems await. Most of these devices don't know much about the content of your files beyond their file names, and that can make navigating them enough of a hassle to consider going back to analog.
The same problem exists with files on hard drives, but many software products can organize and track collections of songs, photos, or movies. Most of these applications store description data, or metadata, in a format proprietary to the manufacturer or perhaps shared among other applications, but not understood outside of the world of computing.
To the rescue come two cross-industry metadata specifications, HighMAT and Music Photo Video. They were both proposed about a year ago to solve this problem and also to define standard ways to store metadata so different applications and hardware devices could access it. The result should make it easier to find files on platforms other than a PC.
Still, few users are likely to recognize either term. HighMAT is on the market, although is supported in only a handful of devices and applications, while MPV is at an earlier stage. However, backers of both systems include some of the biggest names in computing and consumer electronics, and promise things are about to change.
Microsoft Picks HighMAT
HighMAT, developed by Microsoft and Matsushita Electric Industrial (better known as Panasonic) was launched in October 2002. Then, it supported five file formats: Windows Media Audio, MP3, JPEG, Windows Media Video, and MPEG4, and one media format, CD, although DVD was added earlier this year.
About 15 Panasonic-branded products with HighMAT compatibility are available, and Microsoft supports it in Windows Media player 9 and Windows Media Maker, as well as in a Windows XP wizard. Third-party products with HighMAT support are difficult to find, but Microsoft is satisfied with HighMAT's first year.
"We are both excited about the progress HighMAT has made and the continued progress," says Michael Aldridge, Microsoft group product manager at the Windows Digital Media division.
He notes a number of companies have pledged to support HighMAT since its launch. The hardware vendors include Apex Digital, Creative Technologies, and Victor of Japan (JVC). Software support comes from Ahead Software AG, which makes Nero Burning Rom; Aplix, maker of WinCDR; Roxio; and Sonic Solutions. Japan's BHA shipped in September the first third-party application with HighMAT support, B's Recorder Gold 7. Looking ahead, Aldridge expects more software to support the format as applications are updated, and more hardware products with HighMAT as the new year begins.
"Third-party support is starting to emerge," he says, adding that he expects announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. "Based on what I am seeing, you can expect to see more shipping hardware at CES."
MPV's Route
Competitor MPV was developed by the Optical Storage Technology Association, and is a little broader in scope. Announced in November 2002, MPV has unlimited file format support: It works on optical discs and memory cards or across home networks, and the OSTA offers it royalty-free to hardware and software makers.
Its also running late compared to HighMAT.
MPV has a number of big-name supporters, including Eastman Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, LG Electronics, Olympus, Koninklijke Philips, Samsung, and Sony, but prototype hardware is only just being unveiled.
Several MPV products debuted at OSTA's Optical Storage Symposium conference earlier this week, says Pieter van Zee, a senior architect for HP's imaging and printing group. Samsung showed a prototype MPV player for music and photos, expected to ship in early 2004. Olympus demonstrated a digital still camera with MPV support, also due in 2004.
HP announced its Image Zone digital imaging software, which supports MPV and will be bundled with HP products this quarter, van Zee says. Several other software vendors also committed to MPV, including some of the same companies that are backing HighMAT, although their products are yet to appear.
One reason is the part of MPV relating to music is not complete.
The original specification for MPV supported basic metadata, such as the article, title, and description, but the Music Profile 1.0 adds support for things like the music genre, lyrics, and CD cover art. OSTA expects to complete it in December, van Zee says.
Still Deciding
While a number of big-name companies have endorsed one or the other system, many more have yet to do so. That helps leave undecided the question of which will emerge the strongest.
For example, Toshiba is among those not yet allied with either system, and representatives say it isn't rushing to decide.
"In most cases, when users store music or image data with their computers, they will listen or watch with their computers and not with CD or DVD players," says Midori Suzuki, a Toshiba spokesperson. "Of course, this might change over time. When we find more need for such systems, we will consider whether to employ either system or develop our own system."
While the number of supporting companies will help determine the eventual success or failure of both systems, the ultimate decision may lie in the hands of consumers who will create the content and decide which to adopt. Before they can get started, more products need to be out--and if 2004 really does see the more products supporting the metafiles, users will be much better able to judge.
