Philips encoder. The competition.........................................
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Philips Jumps on MPEG-2 with Single-chip Encoder: DVD-RAM Ramp Is Necessary Precursor for Technology Adoption
Philips Semiconductors [PHG] is getting in early on the MPEG-2 encoding market and expects to have volume quantities of a new single-chip design available in September.
But company executives realize the payoff for their engineering efforts may be a long time coming because MPEG-2 revenues will be tied to recordable DVD, a technology unlikely to achieve significant market penetration this year.
Price is another key consideration that will make or break the Philips' silicon effort.
Company officials looking to make a business out of MPEG-2 encoding know their only shot at getting close to the consumer market is to offer peripheral makers a reference with MPEG-2 encoding and decoding they can sell for $500 to $700. And even at that price a product featuring the encoder (model SAA6750H) is more likely to appeal to prosumers. However, such a target is the first step toward building volume and reaching the masses.
Samples of the Philips silicon are available worldwide in limited quantities for $250, and the company expects the encoders to cost $38 in quantities of 100,000 and $35 for quantities of $200,000.
Development of the chip took place in Hamburg, Germany. Michael Kaufmann, Philips' international product marketing manager, is coming to the United States this week for meetings with Philips executives and potential customers to finalize the company's business-development strategy.
Multimedia Week caught up with the MPEG-2 point man last week to get more details about the company's plans.
The biggest threat to Philips so far is C-Cube Microsystems Inc. [CUBE], which is committed to selling OEMs an MPEG-2 codec for less than $100 in time to bring sub-$300 boards to market this Christmas. (See MMW, Jan. 28)
Several major Japanese companies and IBM Corp. [IBM] also are developing single-chip encoders. Philips will debut the chip publicly on March 19 at CeBIT in Hannover, Germany and doesn't expect to demonstrate the silicon at a trade show in the United States until Fall Comdex in November. Despite that schedule, look for the company to make the initial push in the United States.
"I know American companies are more in front with this kind of technology," Kaufmann said.
DVD Travails
The company is focusing on storage applications for the technology. Kaufmann acknowledged that a large installed based of recordable DVD drives-be they DVD-RAM or the DVD+RW format supported by parent company Philips Electronics NV-are necessary to build a market for the encoder.
DVD-RAM manufacturers Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. [TOSBF] and Hitachi America Ltd. expect to have drives available in volume by the end of the month. Panasonic Computer Peripheral Co., which initially planned a January shipments, has run into software problems and now is looking at manufacturing volume by late April. (see MMW, Nov. 26, 1997)
DVD+RW supporters, which include Sony Electronics Inc. [SNE] and other companies selling CD-RW drives, will not have volume drives available until the fall, if then.
PC vendors have yet to commit to incorporating either version of recordable DVD. Workstation manufacturers targeting the less price sensitive content creation market are likely to come out with DVD-RAM PCs first.
TriMedia Tie-in
Kaufmann plans to leverage the resources of Philips' TriMedia group and offer potential customers low-cost reference designs that combine the MPEG-2 decoding capabilities of that processor and the new encoder.
The company is investigating using a future-generation TriMedia chip to transcode DV into MPEG-2, giving vendors another reason to buy it. Philips doesn't expect to sample a 64-bit TriMedia capable of transcoding until the fourth quarter of 1999.
TriMedia is only one vehicle Philips will use to sell the encoder.
"It has to work with all the MPEG-2 decoders in the world," Kaufmann said.
Philips also will make a PCI bridge chip and analog-to-digital converter available in conjunction with the encoder. The company is investigating a reference design with 1394 silicon. (Phillips Semiconductors, 408/991-2646.)
Philips' MPEG-2 Encoder Advantages
Michael Kaufmann, Philips' international product marketing manager, said the company's MPEG-2 silicon requires "less memory and uses a more economical way to edit the data stream" than other encoders coming to market.
He said a PC with the encoder requires 16 MB of memory, 4 of which need to be SDRAM, because the chip uses motion-estimation algorithms.
The chip also includes more than 20 KB of microcode in RAM, which gives OEMs flexibility in designing them, and offers a range of encoding bit rates, from 1.5 Mbps to 15 Mbps. Kaufmann said quality superior to S-VHS is achieved at 6 Mbps to 8 Mbps. |
