Another standard tries to get a beachhead..........
biz.yahoo.com
Eight Consumer Electronics
Companies to Establish HAVi
Licensing Program For the Development of Digital AV
Home Entertainment Networks
--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 10, 1998--Grundig A.G., Hitachi, Ltd., Matsushita Electric Industrial
Co., Ltd. (Panasonic), Royal Philips Electronics N.V., Sharp Corporation, Sony Corporation,
Thomson multimedia, and Toshiba Corporation today announced plans to establish a HAVi(tm)
(Home Audio-Video interoperability) licensing program under which the home network architecture
will be made available to the electronics and multimedia industries in Spring 1999. Philips has been
designated to serve as the licensing contact on behalf of the eight companies.
The eight companies plan to implement a joint patent license program that will enable interested
parties to begin developing HAVi compliant products in the Spring 1999. The license would cover
the use of the HAVi logo as well as patents defined by the HAVi specification that are owned or
controlled by the eight companies and deemed to be essential for the production of compliant
hardware and/or software products.
License holders will be able to develop HAVi compliant software as well as HAVi compliant digital
AV appliances that can be networked across the IEEE1394 digital interface. The HAVi compliant
software acts as consumer electronics middleware which is capable of automatically discovering
devices on the network, coordinating the functions of the various devices, and installing applications
and user interface software on each appliance.
Once connected as a network, HAVi compliant electronics appliances are immediately
interoperable, sharing their resources and capabilities to offer increased functionality and greater
ease-of-use. Specifically, these appliances will provide the consumer with the convenience of hot
plug-and-play connectivity, appliance interoperability, and future-proof operation.
Home entertainment networks based on the HAVi specification promise to play an important role in
enabling entertainment providers, electronics manufacturers, and consumers to take full advantage of
a wide range of new interactive services made possible by the advent of digital technology. Digital
content received from digital broadcast, network, and package media can be distributed throughout
the home to any appliances on the network. Interoperable digital AV appliances--used in
conjunction with the appropriate digital content protection technology--will provide an infrastructure
for many new, exciting services, such as high-speed Internet access, video-on-demand, and home
AV server applications.
About Version 1.0 of the HAVi(tm) Specification
HAVi applications will be able to discover and control compliant appliances regardless of
manufacturer. Moreover, the applications can control individual devices within different appliances
regardless of their physical grouping. Examples of electronics appliances include set-top boxes,
digital VCRs, and hi-fi audio equipment. Devices inside such appliances include tuners, displays,
amplifiers, stream converters, clocks, modems, and Internet access functions.
The HAVi specification has been designed to address all aspects of home networking in an
IEEE1394 based, digital AV environment. The core specification included components for
interchanging messages and events on IEEE1394, registering and discovering device capabilities
across the network, and for managing digital AV streams and devices. Version 1.0 offers a more
efficient, reliable, and secure solution featuring the following improvements:
Java(tm) has been adopted as the HAVi bytecode to make it possible to represent devices
and functions through the use of platform independent, object-oriented APIs. This will allow
software developers to create rich, interactive Java based applications and user interfaces.
HAVi compliant applications can be installed in electronics appliances by the manufacturer or
downloaded from the Internet and other sources.
Version 1.0 incorporates new features, including security that protects against rogue
applications and viruses, an event scheduling element that supports functions such as
programmed recording, and standard programming interfaces that are used to control device
functions.
The new resource manger component performs a wider variety of operations. It handles
device usage conflicts, coordinates programming of scheduled events (such as timed recording
on a digital recorder), and monitors the network for removal of reserved devices.
Version 1.0(B) of the HAVI(tm) specification can be downloaded, for evaluation purposes only,
from the following Internet URL: hyperlink havi.org havi.org |
