Another way to view and pay. They don't round up to the next minute...........................
digitaltheater.com
Hitachi, others planning partial DVD access technology
Date:16-Jun-99
Kyodo via NewsEdge Corporation : TOKYO, June 15 (Kyodo) _ Hitachi Ltd. and project partners said Tuesday they will develop technology to allow buyers of digital video disks (DVDs) to choose and purchase only those parts of the recorded data they wish to see.
Other participants in the project include Sega Enterprises Ltd. and Nippon Columbia Co. The proposed type of DVD -- the size of a 12-centimeter music CD -- will carry a special read-only memory (ROM) chip.
A DVD can hold six to seven times more data than a conventional CD -- a two-hour Hollywood movie or up to 500 pop songs.
The ROM will carry data about which parts of the content owners are entitled to see and which parts they have already paid for, the companies said.
They said they will give the ultra-thin ROM chip the capability to recognize the identity of a DVD player or video-game console owned by a DVD buyer.
Under the system, a DVD buyer would contact, via the Internet, the seller of the DVD to buy an ''electronically-constituted access key'' that would tell the DVD which sections of its data the new owner is entitled to ''unlock.''
The owner of the DVD would be allowed access to movies, video games or music content on the sections of the DVD which he or she unlocks with the ''access key.''
The DVD could also be sold on the second-hand market. The new owner would simply contact the initial corporate seller through the Internet and buy another access key for any part of the DVD he or she wanted to unlock, they said.
Information on which parts of the DVDs their owners are entitled to unlock would be stored in computer servers at the corporate sellers.
Since a record or CD label firm charges about 100 yen per musical item in pricing their newly released CDs, consumers who do not want to pay 50,000 yen per DVD would be pleased to have the option of selecting and paying for only some of those 500 pop pieces, a spokesman of the alliance said.
The project allies plan to propose making the technology the global standard at a meeting in Tokyo this autumn of record and CD label companies of the Norway-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.
They plan to start a series of experiments in August with an eye to putting the new technology to commercial use by the end of next year.
They have already obtained a subsidy from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry to promote the technology.
Hitachi wants to apply the new technology for viewers of ''digital television'' programs who wish to record such high-quality programs on their DVD player-recorders, Hitachi officials said.
Hitachi also plans to impose certain conditions on viewers when they seek to download these high-quality images onto DVDs.
[Copyright 1999, Kyodo News International]
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