Where can you get a chip that does 18 video formats?. :-)............
November 10, 1997, Issue: 980
Section: News
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Standards talks begin as PC/TV clash looms -- U.S., Europe tackle digital-TV interface
By Junko Yoshida, Peter Clarke and George Leopold
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. - As attention turns to the needs of a new generation of interactive applications, the battle to shape the future of digital television has shifted to the API front. In the United States, the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) has formed a group that will meet here for the first time today and tomorrow to study the requirements for a DTV applications-programming interface. In Europe, the Digital Video Broadcast standards body has set a March deadline for crafting its own proposal for digital-TV APIs.
As those groups set about their tasks, the API issue is likely to renew hostilities between traditional TV-receiver manufacturers and the PC industry. When the two sectors fought over DTV video-transmission formats in recent months, the only agreement they could reach was to let the market decide. Knowledgeable industry sources warn the worst clashes may be yet to come, as TV-receiver makers find themselves forced to choose between the well-entrenched PC-industry API-Microsoft's Win32-or an alternative approach that has yet to be articulated.
Hanging in the balance is whether broadcasters will be free to develop interactive applications that can run on divergent receiver and set-top box platforms over disparate operating systems. "Our goal is to develop standard middleware on the receiver that can execute applications in a uniform manner," whatever the OS, said Aninda DasGupta, senior member of the research staff at Philips Research who chairs the ATSC ad hoc group studying the DTV Applications Software Environment.
"Many of us realize by now that TV-receiver manufacturers, cable set-top vendors and PC add-in-card companies are most likely to choose the OS and library most suitable to their markets," DasGupta said. "What we must come up with is standard middleware that lets a receiver execute broadcast applications regardless of the underlying OS or library set."
The DTV API issue may not be settled until well after mid-1998, sources said. Chip vendors and TV makers warn that with no agreements in place on critical issues, first-generation DTV silicon and receivers, expected to hit the U.S. market in late 1998, may be prohibitively costly. They may also lack the datacasting features and interactive capabilities that are seen as necessary to receive future DTV data services or interactive applications.
The unresolved software issues could overshadow DTV chip-set development projects, including an alliance, expected to be announced today, through which Motorola Inc. and Sarnoff Corp. plan to develop a cost-effective DTV chip set (see sidebar)
Whether the ATSC's gradual approach to the API specs is sufficient to allay chip makers' concerns remains to be seen. But Craig Tanner, executive director of the Washington-based committee, noted that it was only about two months ago that chip makers and set manufacturers raised the first caution flags about the lack of API and datacast provisions in the ATSC specifications.
"We're just starting," said Tanner, adding that the ATSC will "move as quickly as the members let us" on the unresolved issues. He acknowledged that the first sets to hit the market may lack datacast and interactive features but asserted, "That's not a disaster."
Tanner also said the ATSC review group wants an API spec that offers a suitable authoring environment and a range of tools.
Some in the PC industry say the foundation for such specs has already been established. "We believe that the PC industry is the logical place to develop APIs because we already have well-defined APIs for the PC environment," said Serge Rutman, senior staff architect at Intel Corp.'s Microcomputer Research Lab (Santa Clara, Calif.). "But it looks like this issue may not be resolved until much later."
There's no shortage of choices on the horizon. Microsoft's Windows CE API and Oracle Corp.'s Network Computer API have been jockeying for adoption as part of the ATSC standard. The European Broadcast Union, meanwhile, has been trying to include the ATSC in its separate standards process, which is reviewing three proposals.
The Europeans are giving themselves until March to devise a solution. "We need to look for a degree of future-proofing of next-generation set-top boxes and multimedia terminals," said Philip Laven, director of the EBU technical department. "We need to be able to download software and upgrade the API over the air."
The EBU has assigned the project to its Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) standards body. Jean-Pierre Evain, a senior engineer at the EBU, said there are three main API proposals before the DVB technical group: OpenTV, from Sun Microsystems and Thomson Multimedia; the MHEG-5-plus-Java proposal of the Digital Audio Video Industries Council (Davic); and Multimedia Highway, the proprietary API of French terrestrial DTV broadcaster Canal Plus. The French broadcaster has recently said it would favor an upgrade strategy through which Multimedia Highway would accommodate MHEG-5 and Java.
"A lot of people are favoring some mix of MHEG-5, Java and HTML, but there is also OpenTV," said Evain. "They may declare an upgrade strategy, like Canal Plus, or they may not. OpenTV could still be accepted."
Europeans and many traditional consumer-electronics vendors in Asia appear to be of a like mind on the API issue. The EBU, while not overtly naming Microsoft or Windows CE in documentation, has nonetheless made clear that it does not favor borrowing an approach from the PC industry. Japanese consumer companies are similarly disinclined.
The technical and political uncertainties notwithstanding, leading chip vendors, including the semiconductor divisions of Japan's consumer-electronics giants, appear determined to open the DTV chip-set market.
In a recent interview with EE Times, Shin Fukuda, general manager of the consumer-products development group at Matsushita's AVC Products Development Laboratory (Osaka, Japan), said the company has internally developed engineering samples of all the key silicon necessary to build its first DTV. Chips includes a vestigial sideband demodulator, MPEG-2 Main Profile @ High Level decoder and video processor. Matsushita plans to leverage a home-grown media processor and proprietary non-RISC 32-bit CPU in its DTVs.
Sharp is also working on internal development of silicon for functions that range from MPEG decoding to video processing to data-service reception. The company hopes to leverage its proprietary New Media Processor (NMP) in its DTV-chip-set development. The NMP is based on a unique data-driven processing core architecture, featuring up to eight clockless cores for high-speed media processing and an ARM 810 core for front-end processing.
The toughest issue facing chip companies is how flexible and programmable their transport IC and graphics chips need to be to receive multiple video streams and one day handle data services.
"For example, one of the network studios may air two or three standard-definition TV streams, but none of the MPEG transport chips on the market today are designed to detect and handle multiple video streams," said Kishore Manghnani, vice president of marketing at TeraLogic (Mountain View, Calif.), a startup DTV-chip specialist.
TV makers are determined to make their initial boxes capable of receiving all 18 video formats now specified in the ATSC document. But when it comes to choosing the video format to display on-screen, most are on the fence, said Manghnani."Most people are working on the plans to receive 18 formats and display in 1,080 interlaced [line mode, or 1,080i] for high-end DTV models."
Fukuda said Matsushita plans to roll out two DTV set-tops in the U.S. market next year. One will receive and display all 18 formats and will primarily find application in video-projector and multiscan-monitor systems. The other is essentially a down-converter that will receive all 18 video formats but down-convert them to 525 progressive (p) or 525i.
For chip makers, Manghnani said, the biggest point of differentiation will be the memory requirement for down-converters. Current solutions require 4 to 16 Mbytes. TeraLogic is filing patents on an approach that it thinks "can offer the smallest memory-size solution," he said.
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Makings of a conflict
- Problem: Without APIs, digital TVs can't handle many interactive apps
- Solution: Standards bodies are studying requirements for programming interfaces
- Next problem: Once again, PC and consumer camps could clash over approach
Copyright (c) 1997 CMP Media Inc.
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