Dyre Straits

By Junko Yoshida

EE Times
March 8, 2004 (12:22 p.m. ET)


DUBLIN, Ireland — The failure of broadcasters, content owners and equipment makers to agree on an open standard and licensing terms for advanced video compression formats has brought development of next-generation digital consumer products to a virtual standstill. Devices at stake include high-definition DVD systems, cellular handsets, portable devices with "TV on the move" features and a new generation of cable and satellite set-tops.

The issue boiled up last week on two continents, as members of the Digital Video Broadcasting Project and the DVD Forum took up the video codec question at separate meetings.

"We are stuck," DVB Project chairman Theo Peek said in Dublin last week in a keynote speech at the DVB World 2004 conference. The statement articulated some members' frustrations with the proposed licensing structures for two next-generation video codecs: H.264 and Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Media Video 9.

http://www.eet.com/sys/news/OEG20040308S0017

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