LA QUINTA, FEBRUARY 7, 2004 -
Today was the final day of the fabulous HPA Tech Retreat hosted by that
digital Gandolf, Mark Schubin. The morning began with the annual
whirlwind Washington Update from technology attorney extraordinaire Jim
Burger who recapped Cable Plug and Play, the Broadcast Flag, the Powell
Transition plan for digital television,
and the ATSC Tuner Mandate (all familiar territory to regular readers of
HDTV Magazine). One interesting tidbit disclosed was the PBS plan to set
a unilateral "hard date" for their own shut down of analog transmission
and return of valuable analog spectrum allocation at some point before
the end of 2006.
Next up was the kinder and gentler face of the MPAA, VP of Technology
Brad Hunt. Brad is a true gearhead who remains remarkably current with
really cool consumer electronic equipment, several pieces of which he
displayed from photos he himself shot at CES. These included several new
firewire products like the DISH PVR-921, the Pioneer DV-59Ai DVD-A and
SACD decoding receiver, and the Mitsubishi 82 inch Alpha LCOS HDTV.
Later in the day HDTV Magazine contributor
Pete Putman reviewed the
latest developments in Flat Panel Displays. Pete's slides illuminated
the many improvements being made to both LCD and plasma, highlighting
several new full 1920x1080 panels displayed at the recent CES. Samsung
and LG in particular have become major players in both markets and each
appears to be trying to outdo the other in the bake off for world's
largest HD flat panel display. One other panel that may be worth a
second look is the new 55 inch enhanced Alis 1366x768 plasma display
from Fujitsu and Hitachi.
One of the most anticipated presentations at this years Tech Retreat was
today's High Definition Optical Disc Panel moderated by Mike Tsinberg of
Key Digital.
Michael Fiedler of Sony and Don Eklund of Columbia Tri-Star Films
extolled the virtues of
Blu-Ray. All of
you high resolution audio fans will be glad to hear as was I that Blu-Ray
will incorporate an optional multi-channel high resolution audio program
that should prove especially useful for concert material. Recent
founding group signees include Dell Computer and Hewlett Packard.
Howard Osa made a rather subdued pitch for the recent DVD Forum endorsed
HD-DVD camp, previously known as AOD (Advanced Optical Disc), also a
blue laser technology, but using an advanced codec. Since Disney, Sanyo,
and most importantly
Microsoft appear to be poised to sign on it is a pretty good bet that
Windows Media 9 will be their compression scheme of choice.
|
Wendy Aylsworth of Warner Bros. made a pitch for the red laser based
HD/DVD9 format rejected last year by the DVD Forum which would be
relatively inexpensive to implement.
Pixsonics
is promoting a similar system utilizing an additional layer of
information on regular DVDs, thus eliminating the need for dual
inventory.
Pankaj Topiwala of FastVDO made the case for
AVC/H.264
which is an MPEG 4 variant compression scheme competing with Microsoft
Windows Media 9 for designation as the standard on the DVD Forum's
HD-DVD. Good luck Mr Topiwala.
The most audacious presentation of them all was by the relatively
unknown On2 Technologies and
its Engineering VP Eric Ameres. VP6 is a proprietary but freely
distributed codec developed with the financial
support of China, as in The Peoples Republic of. That's Red China for
all of you cold warriors. First they take over the Moon and now high
definition video discs? VP6 has already been approved by the SAC (the
Standards Administration of China-and I'll bet you didn't even know that
the SAC even exists), and is now "the approved format of the Chinese
Central Government" aka the PRC. The On2 website claims VP6 to be the
clearly superior HD format in side by side comparisons with Windows
Media 9, H.264, and MPEG2.
All indications are that each of these camps are well entrenched and the
likelihood of a single unified standard emerging anytime soon is
increasingly remote. The stakes are very high, and this saga may dwarf
that of Beta vs VHS many times over. Certainly the dream of recovering
margins on DVD hardware by changing the rules of the game could be a
fleeting one for the CEA. Does anyone
know the Chinese word for "chutzpah"?
THANK YOU TODD FOR AN OUTSTANDING
JOB OF REPORTING BACK TO US FROM THE TECHNOLOGY RETREAT.
Home
IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE
IN
HDTV MAGAZINE.
YOUR FUTURE
CAN COUNT ON IT
CALL 1 800 999-4388
|
