More goodies from Murrayhill after his visit to TI booth at the Plug-In Expo today. Found on the leaderforums.com board. BTW the "sobering" news was that after a visit with a rep from RioPort he got the impression that reasonably priced singles from the music labels would not be available en mass until Christmas 2001.
Subject: TI/EDIG - Plug In expo
From: murrayhill
Date: Tuesday, July 25, 2000
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First, I didn't snap any Joyce Flicks, Tobago! BUT.....
The TI booth at the plug-in expo featured an arrayed display of digital players that featured the earlier TI DSP; the???10. Pardon my lack of immediate familiarity with the complete name/number, but the distinguishing factor seems to be 10 or 16 (as found in the previously mentioned Merit prototype in the Qdesign booth.)
These players included two generations of Sony sound clips, an RCA Lyra, an IMPULSE, and a couple of others that are not memorable by name. They all had headphones (cheesy) and the visitors were invited to sample their sound quality and
functionaity. They all, obviously, were products utilizing TI technology. I listened to none, for the same reason as previously stated regarding the Qdesign codec challenge. I did get into an in depth discussion with the two VERY knowledgeable TI reps, about SONY, EDIG, and what seemed to be the future of secure downloading.
Most important to EDIG shareholders was their mention that EDIG is one of only two third party relationships that TI currently has. They often REFER OEMs to EDIG for design work and have relied on them to port codecs, because they have the skill, and TI doesn't have the time, to paraphrase as accurately as I can. The mOS is NOT embedded in their DSP. I shan't embarrass myself by trying to explain what they told me regarding its location in a player. They have ported ten codecs to their current DSP and a large number of DRMs as well. Maybe five? The gentleman (they were a man and a woman) described HIS relationship with FF as very positive as were his feelings about EDIG in general, and said that he personally spoke with Fred atleast twice a week.
Regarding SONY, they were of the opinion that the transcoding time lag was a bigger negative than any benefit gained from being the first SDMI compliant player on the market.
I'm running out of gas, it seems, so I'll keep watching and try to answer any questions before I comment on my visit with Rioport which provided the only negative, or better put, SOBERING piece of info from my day at the expo. MH |
