IMA ISSUES THREE INDUSTRYWIDE REQUESTS FOR TECHNOLOGY

The Interactive Multimedia Association, a 290-member international multimedia trade association based in Annapolis, MD, has issued three key Requests for Technology. The IMA is soliciting existing technical solutions to cross-platform compatibility problems for multimedia system services, data exchange and scripting language.

An RFT for Multimedia System Services will determine what services must be provided by platform vendors to application developers in order to be IMA-compatible. The goal is to provide a foundation upon which application and title developers can create applications and titles that perform with predictable and consistent results across a wide variety of platforms and networked environments, according to Philip Dodds, managing director of IMA.

Data exchange will be a focal point for cross-platform file containers and data types. Representatives from Apple, Avid, IBM, Kaleida, Lotus and others have expressed hope that Avid’s Open Media Framework and the Kaleida-Lotus-Apple container format “Bento” can be harmonized and submitted as a response, according to Dodds. He says additional responses are expected.

The second technology request calls for a universal scripting language for interactive multimedia titles. It will address the need to develop multimedia applications and titles that can be rendered on any IMA-compatible platform, ranging from consumer-oriented devices in the home to high-powered workstations on a distributed network. “[Kaledia's ScriptX] is undoubtedly going to figure into the responses to the RFT, but they aren’t the only scripting language,” says Dodds.

The third request involves standardization of multimedia data exchange. This will enable anyone to capture video, audio, MIDI, animation, images, graphics and text, and subsequently exchange the data and files with other platforms. Intellectual property rights are a central concern addressed by this RFT. References to the owner and authors of the media content, as well as licensing information regarding the rendering or playback of that data, will be encoded into the data.

While IMA is not a standards-setting body, the results of the RFT are likely to have a significant impact on the multimedia industry because of the high level of involvement by major industry companies, including 3DO, Apple, IBM, Kaleida, Hewlett-Packard, Digital Equipment, Intel, Sun, Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Pioneer and Lotus.

Responses to the RFTs are expected as early as May with a formal IMA document containing the organization’s “recommended practices” by the third quarter of 1993.

“Even if there are no viable responses to these RFTs, this work has high value since it has been drafted by active members of the multimedia design community,” says Dodds. “The RFTs contain detailed technical requirements that have been agreed to by nearly all relevant players. These documents are a kind of ‘rule book’ that has been prepared and ratified by IMA’s member companies.”

Texts of the Requests for Technology are available from the IMA at (410) 626-1380.

PRENTICE HALL PUBLISHES GUIDE TO MUSIC LICENSING

Prentice Hall Law & Business has published The Art of Music Licensing, a practical guide on granting licenses and obtaining permission to use music in the digital age. The impact of new technologies on the licensing process, licensing for computer software and multimedia, and the digital rights and digital sampling controversies are discussed at length in this 1,000-page book.

The Art of Music Licensing evaluates the status of pre-existing licenses and licenses under negotiation in light of new audio and visual technologies. Particular attention is paid to the language used in licensing agreements and how it has changed dramatically since the introduction of cassette tapes, CDs, video cassettes, digital synthesizers and other devices. Practical advice is given on how to word agreements to preclude uses that may arise from previously unknown technologies.

Also discussed are the ins and outs of U.S. copyright law and the complexities of the copyright system. For example, strategies are given for dealing with the problem of “split copyrights,” in which each member of a party owns an undivided interest in the copyright.

More than 70 model forms are included along with recommended licensing fees, names and addresses of the major music rights and clearing agencies, major performance rights societies and a lengthy list of songs in the public domain.

The book, co-authored by Al Kohn, vice president for licensing at Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., and Bob Kohn, vice president of corporate affairs and general counsel of Borland International Inc., is intended for music publishers, intellectual property attorneys, songwriters, recording artists, record companies, movie and television producers, radio and television stations, advertising agencies, software developers and multimedia developers.

The Art of Music Licensing is available for $95 through Prentice Hall Law & Business of Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Prentice Hall can be reached at (800) 223-0231.

DATAKEY ENCRYPTION CARD RECEIVES FEDERAL APPROVAL

Datakey, Inc., makers of portable data carriers for third-party manufacturing customers, received an award from the U.S. Commerce Dept.’s computer systems lab for successfully implementing the Data Encryption Standard — a U.S. standard that specifies parameters for scrambling and unscrambling electronic messages —into an integrated circuit card that helps control access to networked computers and data.

The circuit card, which was developed under contract to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is designed to authenticate both personnel and data transmissions. In addition to supporting DES, the circuit card also uses advanced digital signature technology to help ensure privacy protection when using E-mail, facsimile and other electronic messaging technology. In other words, an individual sending a message on E-mail can affix a binary seal or digital signature that is transmitted with the document. The recipient of that document can then verify who sent it and if anyone else has tried to access it during transmission based on that digital signature.

The circuit card is still in development and is being tested by several different government agencies; it is expected to be licensed in its final version to both civilian and defense branches of the government, according to Datakey.

The company also plans in the future to license the technology for commercial use (in financial institutions, for example).

PACBELL AND SPRINT COMPLETE FRAME RELAY TEST

During a four-month research project exploring how to improve long-distance and local calling services, Pacific Bell and long-distance giant Sprint teamed up to test several different frame relay switches and data communications equipment.

Frame relay, an emerging high-speed packet-switching technology that provides permanent virtual circuits at speeds ranging from 56 kilobits per second to 1.544 megabits per second, is comparable to transmission over private lines, according to test results.

The test network linked Pacific Bell’s frame relay service from its Broadband Lab at San Ramon, CA, over T1 lines to Sprint’s Advanced Technology Labs across San Francisco Bay in Burlingame. While Pacific Bell tested several different frame relay switches in the network configuration, including Northern Telecom’s DMS Supernode Link Peripheral Processor, AT&T’s Broadband Network Switch 2000 and the Newbridge 3600 Mainstreet Bandwidth Manager, Sprint used its own TP4900 switch on its end.

“During the test, we analyzed every aspect of interconnecting with Sprint’s frame relay service, so that our customers will be able to take advantage of the cost and performance benefits of the technology regardless of whether they want to connect to sites located across town or across the country or even international locations where the service is available,” says Joe Simone, director of frame relay product development within Pacific Bell’s Data Communications Group.

Pacific Bell plans to begin offering frame relay service in mid-1993 throughout its four largest service areas: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento and San Diego.

DIGITAL SOUND AND EFFECTS FOR CAR AND HOME

Motorola’s Microprocessor and Memory Technologies Group has a new digital signal processor (DSP) headed for consumer audio markets. Aside from delivering digital audio, the 24-bit DSP called Symphony can be customized to create professional-quality sound effects in car stereo systems, digital speakers, digital amplifiers and television.

One of Symphony’s alluring features is its capability to provide sound field effects by mimicking the reverberations and echoes of such environments as jazz clubs, concert halls and stadiums. These effects are created by delaying and digitally filtering certain signals.

Symphony can compensate for acoustic limitations as well. For instance, the processor can take into account reflective surfaces, space limitations and the number of passengers in a vehicle. It also is capable of dynamic volume control, which maintains the audio level regardless of car speed, wind noise or other external factors.

Automotive stereo suppliers and manufacturers appear eager to work with DSP. Becker, Blaupunkt, Ford, Nokia and Volkswagen are a few stereo and automotive manufacturers who have purchased the DSP for use in future product lines. Selected Ford car models will feature DSP-enhanced stereos beginning in 1995.

Motorola is working to develop a home cinema/television market using the DSP. Dolby Laboratories of San Francisco, a developer and supplier of advanced stereo systems, is collaborating with Motorola to develop a DSP code for Dolby Surround, a consumer version of Dolby Stereo film sound.

Symphony is based on Motorola’s 56004 chip architecture from the DSP56000 family. Motorola chose to make the 56000 sets code-compatible so the entire product line can be used interchangeably. Other products in the line support such applications as multimedia computing, noise cancellation and optical disc drives. A complete set of tools including a simulator, assembler and hardware development systems is available for Symphony.

RADIUS SAYS FULL-SCREEN IS ON THE WAY

We said it would only be a couple of months before companies such as Radius announced their intentions to enter the full-screen, full-motion desktop digital video market for the Macintosh. Well, we were wrong. Radius waited only one month.

The San Jose, CA-based computer hardware company has recently announced specifications for a $3,999 digital video production system that the company claims can input, capture, display and output digital video at 30 frames per second at a resolution of 640 by 480 pixels — a feat none of its competitors has yet mastered. (See Vol. 2, No. 6, p. 13, to learn why.)

VideoVision technology. The name Radius picked for the product is likely to be in violation of a copyright, so we’ll only refer to it as “the product” in this story. Based on Radius’s VideoVision system, which in turn is based on Apple’s original Touchstone technology (see Vol. 2, No. 1, p. 18), the product appears to offer many of the same features available from its direct competition.

Competitors to date include SuperMac Technology’s DigitalFilm card set, RasterOps’s expandable digital video technology based on its MoviePak board and New Video Corp.’s EyeQ video board set.

Unlike its competition, according to Ben Jamison, product manager for the studio product, it uses a proprietary chip set from an unnamed outside source. Jamison says Radius is using “a newer generation of hardware compression” that will allow true full-screen, full-motion digital video during capture, display and output.

The only information about the chip that Jamison would confirm is that in its first incarnation it will be based on JPEG, the still-image compression algorithm.

“The first H-Bus chip set will be available as a JPEG-only chip,” says Jamison. “But the beauty of the H-Bus architecture is that you can plug different daughter cards into the architecture.”

The Radius technology has not even been released to beta sites for testing, so what the product is actually capable of is not yet known. CCube Microsystems — the most likely manufacturer of this new chip, according to outside sources — won’t respond publicly about whether it is working on such a product with Radius.

Despite all the reticence about specifics, Radius considered it important to let potential customers know it was working on such a product. “The situation for us quite honestly is that everyone was pushing us aside as a major player because we weren’t announcing our plans,” explains Jamison. “We felt it was necessary that we talk about the product.”