From today's WEBNOIZE.
-> MP3 Player Maker Licenses E.Digital Design
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news.webnoize.com
The maker of one of the few portable MP3 players currently
available on store shelves is licensing, from e.Digital Corp.,
the reference design for a more advanced player that supports
formats other than MP3.
The move is likely the first of many similar deals, since
portable device makers will need to support formats more likely
to be used by the music industry for commercial music
distribution.
Korean manufacturer Maycom Co. Ltd., which currently markets a
player under the brand name Merit in Europe and Asia, and under
the brand name I-Jam in North America, will incorporate
e.Digital's design into a third-generation music player that
supports multiple music codecs in addition to MP3, including
AAC, Lucent's ePAC and Microsoft's WMA.
E.Digital is working to attract OEM licensees for its design by
marketing its ability to play and interpret multiple formats
for music and digital rights management, without "transcoding."
While some devices on the market and in development will play
formats other than MP3, the most common method of facilitating
that is to change alternate formats into a base format, like
MP3, as the music is put into the player.
Maycom is the first customer of e.Digital's portable player
architecture.
"Maycom wants to get into a true multi-codec device because
they know that the record labels are not going to support MP3,
and they know our device will support whatever is selected,"
said e.Digital CEO Fred Falk.
According to Maycom President S.W. Bae, Maycom licensed the
technology particularly to make its players compatible with
Lucent's EPAC audio format.
"EPAC provides excellent sound quality, and licensing the
e.Digital design helps us get to market more quickly," said
Bae.
The forthcoming 64 MB player, called MP2000 for now, will
support multiple digital rights management formats as well,
including InterTrust's, IBM's EMMS, and Liquid Audio's SP3.
Maycom is slated to begin producing the device late summer,
2000, depending on specifications for approved devices being
finalized by the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) and the
availability of compatible commercial music on the Internet.
In addition to the I-Jam and three other existing products --
Diamond Multimedia's popular Rio, Creative Labs' Nomad, and
Thomson Multimedia's RCA Lyra -- at least 20 similar digital
MP3 players were to hit the market by the 1999 holiday season,
most notably Sony's new MP3-enabled Walkman.
However, most manufacturers have decided products rushed to
store shelves could be obsolete once SDMI determines how an
approved two-phase security system for portables will work.
Falk said E.Digital is working to close other licensing deals.
Since last Friday, the company's publicly traded bulletin board
stock has jumped more than 62%, to close yesterday at $4.72.
The company's market capitalization is $543 million.
____________________________________________________________________
in TECHNOLOGY
-> Creative Technology to Release Two Nomad Players in Spring
To access links and related news:
news.webnoize.com
In anticipation of major labels making digital music available
in the coming months, in various audio formats, consumer
electronics companies are readying new portable devices.
Creative Technology Ltd. in the second quarter of this year
plans to release two portable digital audio players that
support playback of digital music in multiple formats,
including MP3 and Windows Media.
The Singapore-based company has licensed digital rights
management (DRM) technology from InterTrust Technologies to
integrate into two versions of its Nomad portable digital audio
player, both slated for release this spring. The Nomad Jukebox
and Nomad II MG will be programmable, include USB support and
allow users to play back copyright-protected digital music in
multiple compressed audio formats, according to Creative.
InterTrust's DRM tools facilitate transaction processing,
personalized marketing, and "superdistribution," letting
content users re-distribute digital files in limited ways [see
11.12.99 Creative Technology to Add Rights Management to
Portable Players].
Consumer electronics companies Matsushita and Samsung have also
licensed InterTrust's technology, for inclusion in software and
hardware products in development for secure music delivery
initiatives.
By incorporating InterTrust's technolog, new CE devices will be
able to play digital music files from Big Five record companies
BMG Entertainment and Universal Music.
InterTrust is working with the two label groups to develop an
Internet music distribution system that tracks payments and
provides distribution and usage clearinghouses and data center
services.
Today, Korean manufacturer Maycom, which currently markets a
player under the brand name Merit in Europe and Asia, and under
the brand name I-Jam in North America, said it will incorporate
e.Digital's reference design into a third-generation music
player that supports multiple music codecs in addition to MP3,
including AAC, Lucent's ePAC and Microsoft's WMA [see today's
news: MP3 Player Maker Licenses E.Digital Design].
The new Creative Nomad Jukebox will feature 6GB of built-in
storage capable of holding more than 150 album' worth of
digital music, or up to 2,600 hours of spoken word, according
to the company. The player will also feature a line-in for
analog recording from external sources and dual line-out
connections for connecting a four-speaker system.
The Nomad II MG, the successor to the company's first portable
digital audio player, will include 64MB of on-board flash
memory, as well as an FM tuner with preset support and
voice-record capabilities for storing up to four hours of
dictation, messages or personal notes. The player will feature
an open SmartMedia slot for additional memory that can bring
the total user-accessible memory to 128MB or two hours of
music, according to the company. |
