MPEG-3/4, video over home-RF/Bluetooth & CUBE
Topic here is MPG-3 and -4 major chipmaker is CUBE....?
nikkeibp.asiabiztech.com
January 27, 2000 (TOKYO) -- Toshiba Corp. piloted a system to transmit real-time motion pictures by using short-distance wireless data communication technology called "Bluetooth."
MPEG4 is used as a data compression system.
The company is planning to introduce this system the "CeBIT 2000" trade show to be held in Germany from Feb. 24, 2000.
The system is configured with a notebook PC, a digital VCR with a built-in camera and a PCMCIA card by Digianswer of Denmark. The VCR with a camera captures animated video, then the data is stored in the notebook PC, compressed by MPEG4 and transmitted through Bluetooth.
The system can send quarter common intermediate format (QCIF) data at about 10 frames per second. It will have an improved frame speed in the future, a company official said.
This "MPEG4 over Bluetooth" technology was realized by placing the TCP/IP layer on the Bluetooth L2CAP layer. Further on the top is "RTP," a real-time transfer protocol on the Internet that supports MPEG4 data.
Currently, "Bluetooth Special Interest Group," a standards organization for Bluetooth, is making proposals on an AV data transfer specification called "AV profile" using Bluetooth. Toshiba is a member of its Audio/Visual Working Group, and is expected to propose the image transfer technology to the group.
(Nikkei Electronics)
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09/13/1999
PR Newswire
(Copyright (c) 1999, PR Newswire)
AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands, Sept. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- A new project being developed by Pace Micro Technology, on show at IBC 1999 for the first time, will demonstrate how set-top boxes can be networked in the home without compromising security issues for consumers, broadcasters and content providers.
In partnership with NDS and using their advanced encryption technology, Pace will show set-top boxes accessing encrypted program streams via a single remote "family" smartcard in a central security server. Viewers at each television screen will be able to access the programming of their choice, independent of other set-top boxes linked into the network.
These set-top boxes are linked into the server using IEEE 1394. Working with NDS Pace has developed the 1394 interface and authored the software enabling the set-top box to communicate with the server, creating the network links. This approach can be used with other network standards including Ethernet, HPNA and Bluetooth.
According to Tim Fern, Pace's engineering director: "As home networks develop, security will be key to maximizing the interactive service revenues that digital television will create. Issues such as conditional access, content copyright protection, e-commerce and consumer privacy must be addressed if these services are to achieve their full potential. This is now possible through our new partnership with NDS.
"From here we will look to incorporate this technology into an advanced set-top box which could form the basis of a home network server. This is the first stage in making the smart home of the future a reality."
About Pace Micro Technology
Pace Micro Technology plc is one of Europe's largest manufacturer integrated digital receiver decoders, the set-top boxes necessary to receive digital broadcast and value-added services. The company is actively involved in all digital TV platforms -- satellite, terrestrial, cable, MMDS and xDSL -- and has played a key role in the creation of the digital pay television market worldwide. By August 1999 Pace had manufactured over 2,500,000 digital set- top boxes that were delivered to 19 international broadcasters in the UK, Europe, Latin America, Australasia and the Far East.
This landmark was reached less than four years after Pace delivered the world's first MPEG -2 digital boxes in volume to Australia in August 1995. The company has also manufactured 6.5 million analog set-top boxes since it entered the pay television market in 1987. Pace's head office is in Shipley in West Yorkshire and the company's shares are traded on the London Stock Exchange. For further information, please visit Pace's web site at www.pace.co.uk .
IBC 1999
September 10 - 14, 1999
Amsterdam
Hall 3 Stand 331
Contact: /CONTACT: Helen Kettleborough, in the United Kingdom, 011-44(0)1274 538005, or e-mail, helen.kettleborough@pace.co.uk; or Tammy Snook, High Tech Public Relations, 407-667-9355, or e-mail, tammysnook@hightechpr.net, both for Pace Micro Technology/ 11:38 EDT
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Philips shows central gateway for the home
By Junko Yoshida
EE Times
(12/17/99, 5:17 p.m. EDT)
LOS ANGELES — To demonstrate its technology prowess and devotion to residential gateway development, Philips came to the Western Show this week and quietly showed off an advanced home server system. Behind closed curtains, Philips revealed the "central gateway" system to a handful of select U.S. customers and cable operators.
The feature-rich prototype, developed under a project code-named "Rooster," runs on two TriMedia processors. It sports three TV tuners to watch, send and record video. It has connections to the Internet, wireless IP telephony, and full infrared and Bluetooth-based home networking systems.
The server, with 16 Mbytes of RAM, a DVD player/recorder, CD recorder and a 27-gigabytes hard-disk drive, can be operated by voice. A fingerprint recognition system embedded in its small touch screen-based remote control unit communicates the fingerprint information to the home server, which then can identify the user. Presumably, that information would enable the server to offer a so-called "profiled-based service" by sorting out the user's preferred music and video selections to make navigation easier.
"This is to give an idea to service operators what a central gateway system can do for our home," said Greg Pine, senior technology strategist at Philips Digital Networks (Eindhoven, Netherlands).
The central gateway system is still only a concept, said Pine. But the integration of a broadband receiver, a home network system and a variety of storage systems in one large shiny box is attractive to system vendors and service operators, if they're eyeing average consumers, he said.
Multifaceted platform
In the Dutch giant's live demonstration, the central gateway system let a consumer use wireless IP telephony as well as watch, record and playback video programs. The system allowed another user in a separate room to wirelessly download an MP3 file through a Bluetooth-based RF home network, offering 720-kilobit/second pay load. The system let the user not only listen to the music, but to remotely record it on the gateway system's CD recorder in a separate room. While listening to the MP3 music file, the user was allowed to simultaneously surf the Web on a wireless tablet-based computer cradled on his lap.
Philips designed and built the system in Eindhoven. It's showing marked the first time Philips had brought a prototype out of Europe to the United States for demonstration.
Of the two TriMedia 1100 processors inside the system, one is designed to handle asynchronous information, while the other handles isochronous data, according to Pine. The software platform used in the central gateway system is based on Digital Video Broadcast (DVB)'s Multimedia Home Platform engine.
The current prototype system also uses an Intel processor, Pine said, but only as a placeholder to pre-process Bluetooth protocols.
Philips has recently moved the company's headquarters for set-top box activities to Sunnyvale, Calif. The group is now called Home Access Solutions. Of the 3,000 people working within the group worldwide, 800 of them will be based in Silicon Valley. Philips currently holds the No. 2 position in the worldwide set-top market
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