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techweb.com
June 09, 1997, Issue: 1061
Section: News
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Gate opens for DVD in PCs -- System builders granted key decoding license
By Jack Robertson and Mark Hachman
Now that PC vendors have been granted licenses to decode DVD data, the industry can finally begin developing DVD-equipped PCs for the Christmas selling season.
While chip manufacturers obtained the licenses last November, PC makers and board vendors had to wait for their applications to be processed by Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd., which controls the technology behind DVD's Content Scrambling System (CSS)
The hardware licenses are necessary, analysts explained, because the motion picture industry must ensure that DVD data will not be illegally copied inside a PC.
Last week, the Information Technology Industry Council confirmed that PC vendors have obtained DVD copyright protection licenses allowing them to offer movie-playing DVD-ROM drives in computers that will be introduced this fall. Most PC vendors have been licensed to offer either software or chip-based hardware encryption, council officials reported.
A spokeswoman for add-on-board maker Diamond Multimedia Inc., San Jose, said the company had recently obtained a CSS license.
"The way is now clear for the computer industry to make a massive penetration of the consumer electronics market," said James Burger, former Apple Computer Inc. policy executive and now head of the PC industry's ad hoc digital-TV coalition.
"I believe there will be plenty of DVD-enabled PCs on display by fall Comdex," said Mark Gaare, consumer product analyst at Semico Research Corp., Phoenix. "This Christmas should be big."
The security concerns that delayed CSS licenses to software vendors have been alleviated by the performance of decryption and decoding entirely in software, said Ron Richter, vice president of sales and marketing at CompCore Multimedia, a division of Zoran Corp., Santa Clara, Calif.
OEMs can quickly ship CSS-certified PCs by using the first software MPEG-2 decryption/decoder product, SoftPEG-2 from CompCore, which will be available in the third quarter. "Because the software is the only component with access to the data, a PC maker doesn't even need to have a CSS license," Richter said.
Packard Bell NEC and Compaq Computer Corp. have reportedly acquired CSS licenses and signed on to use CompCore's SoftPEG-2 technology.
The cost of discrete MPEG-2 decoding and decryption chips can be eliminated by performing these functions on the microprocessor, Richter said. However, a true 30-frame/s display can only be achieved in some cases with a high-speed Pentium II, analysts said.
The latest Pentium II has enough power to handle the DVD decompression and encryption, said Craig Barrett, president of Intel Corp., Santa Clara, in an interview with EBN last week. "Depending on how firmly DVDs become established in the market, they could be a good consumer draw for PCs."
To avoid unencrypted data from traveling over an unprotected bus, CompCore executives are proposing software decryption/software decoding, rather than allowing decoded data to travel over the PC bus, where it might be intercepted. Alternatively, SoftPEG-2 can be paired with Zoran's ZR36700, through which decryption can be decoded in hardware.
PC OEMs can also use C-Cube Microsystems' ZiVA chip with SecureView, which provides an integrated CSS decryption block together with MPEG-2 decode capabilities. "Basically, to get at the data you'd need to break the chip," said Clint Chao, marketing manager for PCs at C-Cube, Milpitas, Calif.
Priced at $35 in volume, the chip is sampling now and will ship in volume in the third quarter. C-Cube claims that the availability of its CSS integrated solution will allow PC OEMs to design DVD-enabled PCs in time for Christmas.
Copyright r 1997 CMP Media Inc. |
