Group recommends cross-platform compatibility

Earlier this month, the Interactive Multimedia Association, a Washington, DC-based trade group representing more than 260 corporations and institutions, issued two recommended practices for cross-platform compatibility standards in multimedia. The recommendations are in the areas of networked multimedia system services and multimedia data exchange. A third recommended practice for scripting languages is due sometime in early 1994.

We applaud the IMA’s efforts to set standards for multimedia, an area in which multiple incompatible platforms and applications have created a confused and complicated market. However, the results raise some questions about whether the industry will adopt the technologies. Because the IMA is not a standard setting body, it can only make recommendations to industry, not impose standards.

TWO ENTRIES, TWO WINNERS

In both data exchange and multimedia system services, the winners were the only final submissions to the RFTs issued last December. (For more on the IMA’s RFTs, see Vol. 2, No. 12, p. 27, and Vol. 2, No. 8, p. 32.) In the only category in which two viable technologies were submitted, by Kaleida Labs and Gain Technologies for scripting languages, a decision on which technology to endorse was not reached. Brian Marquardt, director of the IMA’s Compatibility Project, says the submissions were accepted based on their technical merits. The IMA was “certainly ready to reject them if necessary” in order to “delay for good technology to come available,” he says.

Multimedia System Services. In the area of multimedia system services, the IMA approved a set of specifications submitted by Hewlett-Packard, IBM and SunSoft, called Multimedia System Services, version 1.0.

Multimedia System Services (MSS) defines specifications for creating, transmitting and playing synchronized multimedia information within a distributed computing environment that includes components from different vendors. MSS is an augmentation file for operating systems that is intended to smooth play of multimedia by determining the capabilities and configurations of workstations.

Multimedia for Unix only. So far, the specification is limited to Unix computer networks only. Although this is an extremely limited base for a proposed multimedia standard, Marquardt says the technology provides a flexible “framework for a lot of future work” that the IMA intends to pursue.

The MSS architecture group, a committee of roughly 40 members that drafted the recommended practice, is working on applying the foundation technology to distributed multimedia data types such as video and audio in local area networks, wide-area switched networks, cable television systems and teleconferencing. No details were available on when any new specifications might be available.

Multimedia System Services, version 1.0, is available on the Internet at ibminet.awdpa.ibm.com.

Avid seals exchange with Apple. In the area of multimedia data exchange, the IMA recommended a combined submission from Avid Technology and Apple Computer, called Open Media Framework (OMF) Interchange. The objective of a data exchange specification is to make it possible for a single audio or video file to be played back on different hardware or software platforms and applications without expensive conversion or modification.

OMF Interchange, version 1.0, is a standard format for the interchange of digital media data among heterogeneous platforms. The format, which was introduced in April, is designed to encapsulate all the information required to transport digital media, such as audio, video, graphics and still images, as well as rules for combining and presenting the media.

The Apple lunchbox. Apple and Avid, which had been in discussions prior to the IMA RFT, originally made separate submissions, but decided to combine their technologies shortly after the review began. Apple’s Bento technology is the underlying container format of OMF. (Bento is a Japanese word meaning lunchbox — the analogy being that data are put into a lunchbox container for easy portability.) OMF is a public domain technology that more than 25 companies have collaborated on.

The OMF Interchange technical specification is available by contacting Avid in Tewksbury, MA, or on the Internet at omf-request@avid.com.

Kaleida spars against Gain. Kaleida Labs and Gain Technologies have submitted multimedia scripting languages for review. A recommendation from the IMA is due in early 1994.

A recommendation on scripting languages is intended to specify a hardware-independent language that defines interactions and behavior of a multimedia title, without using platform-specific software codes. Once a language is broadly accepted, then “script players” for each platform can be created so one script can play on many platforms without modification — making it faster, easier and less expensive for developers to create a title on one system, and making it possible for titles to be played on a range of platforms.

Unclear on the market. A recommendation was originally scheduled for release this month. However, in reviewing the technology, the architecture committee decided the RFT was too broadly written and needed to be further refined. “When the RFT was first written [a year ago], we were a little naive in thinking that everyone wanted the same thing,” says Marquardt. “We found that the business and consumer markets have different requirements.”

The consumer market, as the IMA sees it, is primarily interested in standalone computer systems, while the business market is increasingly employing distributed computing environments. “A year ago we would have all said the market was in standalone,” says Marquardt. “Now we are seeing so many multimedia business applications out there that distributed is important too.” The architecture committee is addressing which market the IMA wants to address and whether the RFT is adequate. (We are completely puzzled as to why, with all of the current focus on high-bandwidth interactive services to the home, IMA should assume that a standalone solution will be adequate even for home markets.)

A CHANGING MARKET FOR MULTIMEDIA

The IMA’s attempt to establish standards for multimedia is a laudable, but extremely challenging undertaking. The market for multimedia is a sea of varied and incompatible applications and platforms. For developers of multimedia content, the lack of standards adds cost and time to projects because their materials must often be modified and rewritten in order to run on different platforms. For consumers, it adds confusion and uncertainty about what technologies to invest in. This chaotic state is only further compounded by the fact that with cable, telecommunications, publishing, entertainment, consumer electronics and computer industries all jumping into interactive media, the number of multimedia platforms, networks and technologies only keeps growing.

Slower than the market… As the IMA’s dilemma with scripting languages reflects, a central problem in trying to set standards in multimedia is that definitions, technologies and markets can change with the blink of an eye. The recommended practices issued this month took more than a year to emerge from committees. Marquardt says the architecture committees are working on accelerating these timetables so decisions can be made faster.

Faster than a standards body. The IMA might be criticized as too large and bureaucratic a body to carry out swift deliberations for recommended practices in the area of multimedia. However, it should be noted that its review cycle is a speeding bullet compared to the laborious deliberation processes of official standard-setting bodies, such as the International Standards Organization (ISO) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), which take an average of nine years to set a standard.

A membership for convergence. Certainly the IMA has a membership that should help keep it abreast with the pace of changes. Membership in the IMA, which was founded in 1988 as the Interactive Video Industry Association, reflects a strong computer influence, but also includes a growing number of consumer electronics, publishing and telecommunications companies as well as educational institutions.

Association sponsors are Apple, Digital Equipment, Eastman Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Lotus, Microsoft, Mitsubishi, AT&T/NCR, Pioneer and Sun. Other members include Cable Television Laboratories, Bellcore, MTV Networks, PBS, New York University, 3M, Motorola, Philips, Compaq, Hitachi, Times Mirror, Sony, Southwestern Bell, General Instruments, Paramount Technology Group, Ziff-Davis Publishing and the National Association of Broadcasters.

Negotiating a difficult industry. The ultimate problem with attempts to set standards is that there is no guarantee that anyone will follow recommended practices for multimedia standards, no matter how sound the technology proposed. Computer companies are loathe to relinquish any perceived advantages in the marketplace to adopt another’s technology. Although Microsoft, the 800-pound gorilla sitting in the middle of the multimedia field, is an IMA sponsor, history has shown it to be reticent to follow any lead except its own in setting standards.

Unfortunate though it may be for confused consumers and frustrated developers, the fate of the IMA’s recommended practices and other de facto multimedia standards lies in the hands of Microsoft and companies in the industry, which (understandably) view the creation of standards through the prism of their own technical and commercial needs.

Amy Johns