Zoran ....with SVCD
Zoran first out of the chute as chip makers scurry for design wins with Super VCD players -- China crafts homegrown video-CD format
Sep. 11, 1998 (Electronic Engineering Times - CMP via COMTEX) --
Beijing - In a move that could mark its technology independence, China
is poised to release a homegrown specification for next-generation
video-CD players, dubbed Super VCD, that could serve a market of as
many as 15 million users by 2000. Among the host of semiconductor and
systems companies racing to meet the spec upon its market arrival is
Zoran Corp., which is expected to announce a single-chip SVCD
implementation this week.
China today is by far the world's largest consumer of video players
conforming to the Video CD format. SVCD will offer higher quality than
VCD but at lower costs than a full-blown digital-videodisk (DVD)
player. The SVCD effort is at the vanguard of a broad campaign by
China's authorities to establish home-grown standards for its
electronics markets and producers (see Nov. 24, 1997, page 1).
The standard itself has been nearly a year in the making, with the
China National Technical Committee of Standards on Recording-comprising
30 members from the country's manufacturing and research
communities-having voted on the specs in August and forwarded the
results to the Ministry of Information Industry (MII). At press time,
that government agency was expected to release the final, detailed
specs within days.
Whatever the release date, the government and domestic industry will
likely consider it China's technological independence day, signaling to
the world its desire to control its own destiny in consumer technology.
The country doesn't intend to shut out foreign suppliers, but those
companies had better be prepared to conform to China's sanctioned view
of its home markets.
Jin Zhenglong, deputy secretary general of the China Electronic Audio
Industry Association (Shanghai), was recently quoted by China's Xinhua
news service as saying that "foreign companies should not try to take
control of China's digital-disk industry [or use] their technological
and financial muscle to force Chinese firms to adopt their standards.
We like to introduce advanced foreign technology, but we don't want to
attach ourselves to any foreign company."
By handpicking SVCD-system and -component suppliers partly on the
basis of their willingness to comply with its new standard, the Chinese
government hopes to fend off a format battle and early market confusion
over the next-generation video CD standard (see June 22, page 1). At
least three incompatible formats have been duking it out for the title
of successor to Video CD: China VideoCD (CVD), developed by C-Cube
Microsystems and its Chinese OEM partners; the government's own SVCD
format; and HQ-VCD, pitched by the Video CD Consortium. That group
comprises Matsushita, Philips, Sony and JVC, which originated the Video
CD standard.
U.S. chip vendors and Japanese and European consumer-electronics
giants, ostensibly in the cause of helping China develop its
next-generation Video CD standard, have been competing fiercely here
for share
of mind. Over the past year, each has negotiated with the Chinese
government and Chinese OEMs, proposing slightly different, incompatible
specifications in a bid for the inside track to a potentially huge
consumer market.
SVCD's pending passage, however, appears to have some of the
competitors in a conciliatory mood. Notably, U.S. chip vendors ESS
Technology (Fremont, Calif.), LuxSonor (Fremont) and Zoran Corp. (Santa
Clara, Calif.) have decided to present a united front in working with
the Chinese government and have fallen in behind Beijing in touting "an
industry standard open to everyone."
Competitive move?
Some sources said the move could constitute an effort among ESS,
LuxSonor and Zoran to contain C-Cube Microsystems (Milpitas, Calif.).
C-Cube not only dominates the current VCD market in China but has gone
its own way in pursuing a successor spec, launching the proprietary CVD
format in June with its OEM partners. Sources said the CVD camp,
apparently impatient with the sluggish pace of the government's
standards effort, opted to act unilaterally rather than miss what may
be only a small window of opportunity for the new VCD standard before
DVD digital-videodisk players take off here.
Both Chinese government officials and U.S. chip vendors have
expressed concern that C-Cube and its OEMs may be hatching a plot to
make SVCD a subset of CVD. Some U.S. industry sources claimed that CVD
disks are already available that incorporate a C-Cube-developed
proprietary content-scrambling system. The scrambling feature would
make it virtually impossible for SVCD players to unscramble CVD content
and play back CVD disks. Meanwhile, C-Cube has hinted that CVD players
will be adjusted to play back SVCD disks.
Asked whether the Chinese government and some chip vendors are
joining hands expressly to drive CVD out of the market, Harold Liang,
chief executive of LuxSonor, said, "We are not containing C-Cube. But
we want to make sure that C-Cube doesn't contain us."
Nonetheless, a C-Cube spokeswoman said last week that her company is
working with the Chinese government and OEMs to ensure a single,
compatible standard. Citing "multiple political issues" on which she
failed to elaborate, she said, "We cannot afford to be controversial
over the formats right now. We need to lay low on our public commentary
and speculations."
Despite that comment, the SVCD and CVD camps have been flooding the
prime-time airwaves with advertisements for their competing formats on
China's national CCTV. The ads mask the reality that there are far more
titles available for the existing VCD format than either SVCD or CVD.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government is said to have succeeded in
persuading Video CD Consortium members to drop the name HQ-VCD while
the government works elements of the consortium's format into the final
SVCD standard.
Development work at the silicon level continues apace. Zoran Corp.
(Santa Clara, Calif.), a newcomer to China's Video CD market, is
expected to announce a single-chip SVCD here this week. Chinese system
OEMs, foreign disk-drive manufacturers and a number of Ministry of
Information Industry (MII) officials are scheduled to share the podium
at the Zoran announcement.
LuxSonor, for its part, staged an SVCD seminar recently in Shenzhen.
"A pent-up demand for the new standard drew close to 400 people to our
event, even though we sent out our invitation to only a little over100
people," Liang said last week. Attendees at last month's event included
Chinese system OEMs, disk manufacturers and title developers, as well
as high-ranking MII officials, Liang said.
ESS Technology will release its own SVCD-compliant solutions within
the next few weeks, promised Fred Chan, chief executive officer.
Responding to a Chinese government demand to prove that SVCD is not a
paper standard but is backed by a real product commitment, a dozen
Chinese consumer-electronics companies held a joint press conference in
Beijing on Sept. 1 to demonstrate SVCD, according to Chan. A similar
press conference was held on Sept. 6 in Shanghai, with several
additional OEMs joining the announcement. That puts the number of
manufacturers that have publicly committed to building SVCD players at
15 or 16.
Late last week, Zoran, LuxSonor and ESS all said they had a
preliminary copy of the final SVCD spec in hand. But all said they were
still waiting for the official final version to be released.
The basic components of the SVCD technical spec are support for
MPEG-2 video, 2/3 D1 video resolution (480 x 576), MPEG-1 and MPEG-2
Audio Layer II, two-channel audio, variable-bit-rate (VBR) encoding,
overlay graphics and text, and a 2X speed CD-ROM drive with a multiple
tray.
The current VCD format, by contrast, provides for resolution of 352 x
288 based on MPEG-1 video.
Under SVCD's overlay-graphics and text (OGT) technology, text would
be multiplexed with audio and video streams. The intent is to improve
the quality of subtitles and multiple languages displayed on-screen. In
the VCD standard, such subtitles were compressed with video, resulting
in a low-quality text display, according to Shmuel Farkash, vice
president of video products at Zoran.
Notable differences between SVCD and the DVD format, meanwhile,
include the lack of support for Dolby Digital in SVCD, as well as the
Chinese format's use of a CD rather than a DVD drive. After that, the
specs are virtually identical.
DVD's DVD-ROM drive is the single largest contributing factor to its
cost premium over SVCD, which Farkash said "can offer DVD-quality video
at only an incremental price increase over VCD." Zoran estimates the
initial price of an SVCD system at around $175 to $200, compared with
VCD's $150 to $175.
The new SVCD system could displace the Video CD format-which logged
15 million units here in 1997 alone-in China by 2000, some sources
predict. At the same time, despite its higher price tag, DVD is
expected to post steady gains here. Some believe DVD may be the
dominant digital-videodisk format in China by 2001.
Zoran's Farkash is among those who believe the transition to SVCD
will happen quickly. "We are hearing that some VCD manufacturers have
already stopped manufacturing VCD in preparation for SVCD," Farkash
said.
Zoran has not participated in China's VCD market until now and thus
must be aggressive in promoting its SVCD solution. The chip integrates
a proprietary digital signal processor that Zoran specifically designed
for audio, an on-screen-display (OSD) processor, an overlay-graphics
and text processor, MPEG demux, MPEG-2 video decoding, a host
interface, a phased-lock loop and a memory interface.
The proprietary audio DSP, designed to handle not only MPEG audio
decode but also karaoke processing functions, will play a pivotal role
in the chip's ability to compete against other companies' chip sets,
Farkash said. Zoran's solution won't require a separate
audio-processing chip for such karaoke functions as voice-cancel, echo
and key control. C-Cube's CVD solution, by contrast, uses a Yamaha
karaoke processor.
Market pluses
Zoran's 40-Mips embedded DSP also accommodates Dolby ProLogic, 3-D
virtual sound and music modes. Such features may be market
differentiators or market mandates in the future, Farkash said.
Zoran's chip, designated the ZR36205, also needs less memory for
decoding MPEG-2 video than competing solutions do, according to
Farkash. Zoran last year patented a method for using only one 16-Mbit
DRAM for MPEG-2 video PAL (phase-alternation line) decoding.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is producing the chip in
volume for Zoran on a 0.35-micron process.-Sunray Liu contributed to
this report.
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