China's EVD spec enters digital video fray
By Junko Yoshida and Mike Clendenin, EE Times
November 24, 2003 (11:12 a.m. EST)
URL: eetimes.com
BEIJING — The unveiling here last week of a high-definition digital video format by a group of Chinese OEMs and government agencies weaves an unsettling subplot into the protracted global wrangling to define the next generation of digital consumer electronics.
The Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD), designed to offer high-definition content on optical disks using a red-laser pickup, becomes the presumptive standard for recording and playback of digital video, audio and data within the People's Republic. The initiative tosses the gauntlet to other industry bodies, including the DVD Forum and the Blu-ray Disc group, that are competing to define next-generation HD optical-disk specs for Japan, Europe, the United States and other nations.
China made its EVD announcement the same week that the rival DVD Forum's Steering Committee met in New York to ponder the proposed HD-DVD spec. Forum representatives did not respond to queries on developments from the meeting.
Meanwhile, earlier last week, licensing agency MPEG LA announced that essential H.264 patent holders had reached a long-sought agreement on joint licensing terms for aspects of the H.264 codec.
Tying these events together is a battle over the ownership of advanced digital video coding technology, considered a core driver for next-generation digital television, high-definition optical disks, broadband network applications and mobile communications.
In developing its technology standard, China claims to have set a clear strategy that parts company with the rest of the world and charts a national course focused on building up domestically developed intellectual property.
The stated intention of initiatives like EVD is to avoid an undue reliance on foreign technology and thereby alleviate the royalty burden on the country's DVD equipment makers. But China's go-it-alone strategy has frequently proceeded in fits and starts, with various phases following sometimes-contradictory steps and with companies often forming close partnerships with foreign technology companies as a byway on the long road to manufacturing autonomy.
EVD players could use MPEG-2, proprietary codecs until homegrown AVS spec is complete.
The first-generation players demonstrated at the EVD launch, for example, employed MPEG-2 Main-Profile@High-Level-based advanced encoding technology and decoder chips from LSI Logic Corp., EE Times has learned. Those players, made in China, are ready to ship, according to Tim Vehling, director of marketing at LSI Logic (Milpitas, Calif.).
Eleven EVD player models debuted here last week. The manufacturers include Amoi, BBK, ChangHong, Malata, Ninatus, Shinco, SVA Group, Skyworth and YuXing.
Meanwhile, China appears to be keeping the door open to a number of proprietary codecs, including one from On2 Technologies Inc. (New York), for use in future EVD players. Douglas McIntyre, president and chief executive of On2, said that the EVD standard "includes only the On2 codecs, making VP5 and VP6 the official video compression technology to be used in future versions of the EVD."
But Hao Jie, president of a consortium of Chinese OEMs and government agencies that promotes high-definition digital optical disks in China, made it clear to EE Times that On2's technology is "an alternative option." Hao, whose organization is called E-World, said On2 support is provided for manufacturers that require compatibility with On2's VP5 and VP6. But such alternatives as DiVX and WindowsMedia might "be adopted as a part of the AVS [Audio Video Coding Standard] codec" and "may have more opportunities in China," Hao said.
AVS is a proprietary Chinese digital audio/video codec scheme that's still under development. China's official stance is that the codec end game for its EVD initiative is neither MPEG-2 nor a proprietary technology, but the eventual adoption of AVS-and the production of fully Chinese-manufactured ICs to support it. China contends that AVS, when completed, will rival H.264, an international-standards-based video codec that chip vendors worldwide are scrambling to support.
Hao projects EVD player shipments of 1.8 million units for 2004, though nobody is sure how many of those will use MPEG-2, On2's codecs or some other technology.
"The combination of EVD and AVS could produce a single product that would completely rely on homemade standards," said Huang Tie-Jun, secretary of the AVS Workgroup, a consortium of 50 universities, government organizations and companies that has been authorized by China's influential Ministry of Information Industry and that operates under supervision from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The academy has been working on compression technologies for more than five years, but few details have emerged. The AVS group was formed about a year ago to help commercialize the academy's research. At the time, the sometimes-acrimonious debates among Chinese manufacturers and licensing agencies on the best course for the nation's homegrown efforts had reached a fever pitch.
Wang Guozhong, an executive at Chinese consumer products giant SVA Group, said Chinese companies would seek to cross-license EVD-related intellectual property if the format proved successful. The company was among the domestic manufacturers that prepared demonstration systems for last week's EVD announcement.
Wang said he believes the AVS codec will be the technology of choice for EVD equipment. "MPEG-2 was used in the past [for DVDs] because there was no technology to match it. But now in China, there are many universities and government institutes that are studying other ways."
In fact, China has made no secret of its industry's intensive efforts to dissect H.264. Representatives of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Digital Technology Lab last week told EE Times that the lab has developed a decoder for H.264 that supports PAL and NTSC at 720p (progressive) as well as at 1,080i (interlaced) scanning). Called Life01, the decoder has reportedly been verified in an FPGA.
Foundry Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. is producing a prototype, which the lab expects to have in hand by the end of the year. The lab will then develop a coder in the first quarter that will increase compression by two to three times over MPEG-2, researchers said.
Success with those efforts could close the gap between digital video chip vendors in China and those in the rest of the world. "We are hoping to find a way to transfer this technology, such as finding a company to buy the design or spinning off a company to set up a business for the chip," said Zhang Ping, a project manager at the lab.
The lab is also working closely with the AVS Workgroup, which Huang said expects to release version 1.0 of its specification in early December.
"Although AVS1.0 and MPEG-2 are totally different standards at the low level, we believe it would be wise to have it compatible with MPEG-2 at the system level, so that OEMs can build applications that can play both AVS-compliant and MPEG-compliant streams," Huang said.
In advance of the AVS1.0 release, the Digital Technology Lab has finished a sample software decoder and is busy spinning a version of the encoder spec into silicon, Zhang said. A sample is due in March. Compatibility between AVS and H.264 is a goal, he said.
Some sources acknowledged that foot-dragging by H.264 patent holders on a licensing structure for the scheme may have opened the door to AVS and proprietary codecs. The H.264 community expressed relief last week that MPEG LA had released licensing terms. But potential users of H.264 technology still must deal with two licensing agencies for H.264 patents: MPEG LA and Via Licensing.
By contrast, the AVS Workgroup has already set "a suitable licensing fee," said SVA Group's Wang. "If On2 and their VP6 is reasonable, then that can be adopted. [But H.264 backers] are too busy arguing over the IP, and that's not good for our marketing efforts."
On2 touts the proprietary status of its V6 as a plus, citing the lack of "patent- pooling" restrictions and "complicated external licensing fees." McIntyre said On2 has entered an agreement with China to provide its proprietary codecs at royalties of $2 per player, while the company will charge no fees for disks that use On2's codecs for compression.
China's EVD initiative reminds many in the industry of an earlier strategy whereby China first embraced the Video CD format and then proceeded with the development of its own Super Video CD scheme. Both formats were sold mostly in China and a few other Asian countries. LSI Logic's Vehling went so far as to call EVD "a reincarnation of VCD."
Whether the EVD format will win over Chinese consumers remains to be seen-and depends in no small part on the availability of high-definition content on EVD disks. A dozen titles unveiled at the EVD announcement originated in Hong Kong, according to Vehling.
Several Hollywood studio executives reportedly attended the EVD announcement ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing last week. But for now, the "studios are sitting on the fence about releasing any high-resolution DVD content," said Michelle Abraham, senior analyst at In-Stat. "No one seems inclined to move."
SVA's Wang acknowledged, "If we want to sell it to end users, [our product] must be compatible with DVD because there is no high-definition content. And if the product is compatible with DVD, then we will have to pay a royalty." |
