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Technology Stocks : e.Digital Corporation(EDIG) - Embedded Digital Technology -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe Copia who wrote (4460)	5/21/1999 11:43:00 AM
From: Robert G. Hanah	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18366

NEXT WEEK HERE WE TAKE FOUR DAYS....

To: Joe Copia who wrote (4460)	5/21/1999 11:51:00 AM
From: bob	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 18366

Lucent pushes MP3 alternative MIDDLETOWN, N.J. (NB)--Lucent Technologies is working with e.Digital to create a player for downloadable music that the firm hopes will compete successfully with the now popular MP3 downloadable music format (see "From the Editor" by David Tanaka in this issue). The new players will use digital signal processors (DSPs) made by Texas Instruments (TI) and an audio coding system based on a compression system originally developed by Bell Labs. The Lucent compression system is called the Enhanced Perceptual Audio Coder (EPAC). If EPAC players take off commercially, it will be a triumph for the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), the recording industry's effort to develop an open but secure access system for digital music. Lucent's New Ventures Group was a founding member of the trade group, which has criticized MP3 as not providing adequate protection for copyrighted digital material. Rachel Walkden, director of the audio initiative for the New Ventures Group, says there are many reasons for consumers to prefer EPAC to MP3 files. "It is basically a better codec [compression-decompression system]," she said. "EPAC at 80Kbps is at least as good as MP3 at 128Kbps. So you can get the same quality for a third less space and a third less time to download." About the built-in digital security, Walkden said, "Once the [record] labels and RIAA [Recording Industry Association of America] are happy, there is an architecture to protect their content, the anticipation is that they will start to release music for marketing on the Internet." She added, "The consumer will be able to get better content on widely available Web sites much more easily than they currently can with MP3. Finding MP3 files is not the easiest thing in the world. It's not a pleasant consumer experience. If they could go to a few areas and download music files there, and know they are doing it legally, that will be a plus." Fred Falk, chief executive of e.Digital, says the sound quality of EPAC is exceptional. Declares Falk, "We know what people want in an Internet music download player; great sound in a compact device that's robust and well-priced." The player itself is still under development, but Walkden says Lucent does have a protype in operation. The new device will be made by e.Digital using Lucent's patented MicroOS file management system. For signal processing, the device will use what the firms describe as a new class of DSP developed by TI. The Lucent EPAC decoder has been ported to the TI chip already. TI plans to support other codecs later, in order to establish the chip as a market standard, Walkden said. MP3 files are highly compressed versions of standard CD audio recordings that fit about 10 times more music into the same amount of storage. The best known current MP3 player is Diamond Multimedia's Rio. EPAC is a new version of the Perceptual Audio Coder on which MP3 was based. It was developed by Bell Labs, the research and development arm of Lucent Technologies. This article, although old news, apparently came out in Canada today. Question Is that a typo or......????????????????