Two codecs ported to TI DSPs - Gota wonder where we fit in
February 23, 2001 (12:50 p.m. EST)
Texas Instruments has extended its
partnership with Microsoft by TI agreeing
to port Windows Media on to its DSP
based OMAP applications processors.
The move will allow manufacturers of
GSM and third generation handsets
designed around the TI OMAP processor
to support the playback of Windows Media
audio and video formats. It also quickens
the pace for delivering streaming
multimedia to mobile Internet appliances,
2.5G and 3G enabled smart phones.
Alain Mutricy, director of the wireless
business unit at TI, told
commsdesign.com:
"Windows Media is a leader in offering high-quality audio and video
using very small bandwidth or file sizes. Extending integrated
Windows Media and Audio and Video support on our DSP-based
OMAP processors will help enable a new wireless age for rich media
services".
TI's support for the Microsoft system on its C500x range of DSPs has
already helped fuel the use of CD quality music at half the file size
of
MP3.Windows Media is now used on over 60 consumer devices, from
portable MP3 players to digital home stereos.
The collaboration should speed the industry's already rapid embrace
of wireless delivery of streaming music and video.In addition to
Microsoft, TI also supports software from Packet Video and Real
Networks on its processors and development programmes.
November 15, 2000, 7:00 am ET
Despite many trials, investments, announcements, and strategic alliances a new standard for digital audio has yet to emerge -- QDesign Corp. plans on changing that with QDX.
"The game is far from over," Ken Ashdown, QDesign's vice president of marketing, told MacCentral. "The ultimate winner will be the format to offer a truly seamless music experience. To earn consumer confidence, technology must provide 'anywhere, anytime' quality and ease-of-use across the widest array of hardware and software platforms."
QDesign is promoting QDX, which they describe as the "first truly scalable, secure digital music platform," at this week's Webnoize 2000, an annual summit meeting for music industry reps and technology people.
"The topic that consistently makes the rounds at such meetings is that the public has spoken, and there is a future for digital music," Ashdown said. "The question is how can we make it easier for consumers so that they enjoy the experience. We don't need a complex or painful way to get digital music. But there are more and more hardware devices, more and more modes (both wired and wireless) -- and storage media proliferates. But consumers need to be able to get music in a seamless and easy-to-use way. We think QDX is the answer."
QDX is a dynamically scalable digital music platform solution that offers exclusive user-friendly features and enables new products, services, revenue streams, and business models, said Ashdown. Unlike other formats, a single QDX source (master) file can be streamed or downloaded at any equal or lower data rate without transcoding, while maintaining exceptional quality and resulting in significant asset management savings."
QDX means you're no longer limited to music-only downloads, subscription or ad-based streaming models, according to QDesign. They say that its enhanced security protects your copyrights; that it guarantees optimal quality over any network, any bandwidth, and any modem speed; and that QDX offers genuine dynamic "on-the-fly" scalability.
QDX also sports Fit-to-Media and Fit-to-Stream features, which are designed to dynamically and automatically scale music files to the smallest increments. Fit-To-Media can purportedly store up to five times more music on a portable device (2.5 hours per 32 MB memory). The Fit-to-Stream feature means that music can be streamed and/or downloaded to cell phones, PDAs, office desktops, portable digital devices, car stereos, and in-home systems from just one file, said Ashdown.
"QDX is designed for both streaming and downloading at high and low end rates," he said. "This means that providers can get their music to lots of users without having to store to lots of different files for each song. For consumers, this means they can get the very best quality music for their particular type of online connection. It will also make it easy for consumers to transfer music they have bought and paid for from one device to another."
The QDesign and Apple QuickTime teams are working to make sure that QDX and Apple's multimedia technologies work together flawlessly, said Ashdown. Whether this results in QDX plug-ins for QuickTime 5 or making QDX "native" to QT is still being determined.
QDX, unveiled in July, is beginning to pick up steam as more companies come aboard, said Ashdown. For instance, Texas Instruments is supporting a version of QDX in two of its chips.
"QDX proper, as we refer to it, has a number of features that are a function of dynamic scalability and need to be implemented in a certain way," Ashdown said. "You can't automatically access all the features just because you can access the format. However, our hope is that as QDX is adopted into streaming architectures and used in more devices, the record companies will see the value of format and it will continue to grow."
