Media Reports
IFA: Report from Berlin
By Barry Fox
Multimedia Manufacturer, Nov/Dec 2005
The USA has CES in Las Vegas; Europe
has IFA in Berlin
IFA, originally the Berlin Radio Show and now the International
Funkausstellung or Radio Show, is staged every two years and is
even bigger, hotter, and more daunting to cover than CES, because
the public is allowed in. Despite the International label, and the
fact that press fly in from all round the world, it has taken years
for the exhibitors to accept the need to pay for simultaneous translation
of their German press conferences into English, and to provide literature
in both languages.
In the official IFA press room, where journalists are charged
high prices for soft drinks, coffee, and wireless Internet access,
there were two dozen computers on which reporters could write their
stories. But every single one of the computers has a German keyboard,
with a seriously different QWERTY layout. "If I provided any
English/American keyboards I would also have to provide Chinese
and Russian ones too," said the large German IT manager who
rules the room.
IFA is traditionally the launch pad for major new products. This
dates back to the first tape recorders from Telefunken and BASF
before World War II, the first cassette recorders from Philips in
the 1960s, and then CD, DCC, and DVD. This year all eyes were on
the promise of HDTV for Europe in 2006 (to coincide with the FIFA
World Cup 2006 soccer championships in Germany) and the ongoing
battle to produce a single standard for blue laser recording of
HD signals.
In a high profile event staged by the Blu-ray Disc Association
(of Philips, Sony, Panasonic, TDK, and others) Frank Simonis, Marketing
Director for Philips Optical Storage, confirmed that the Association
is on track for a "Blu-ray format launch early next year."
Movie studio 20th Century Fox has now backed the format over the
rival HD-DVD.
Andy Setos, President of Engineering at Fox, was present and spoke
bluntly: "HD DVD does not have enough capacity on a 15 GB single
layer," he said, reminding that Blu-ray can hold 25 GB in a
single layer and calling "the other format," HD-DVD, "not
very exciting." Fox also chose Blu-ray because of its enhanced
copy protection.
Like HD-DVD, Blu-ray uses the Advanced Access Content System developed
by Intel, IBM, Panasonic, Microsoft, Sony, Toshiba, Disney, and
Warner Bros. But unlike HD-DVD, Blu-ray also adds a second layer
of protection called BD+, and a third layer called ROM Mark.
BD+ is based on the Self-Protecting Digital Content system developed
by Cryptography Research, Inc. in San Francisco.
Says Andy Setos: "A lot of energy went into this. We talked
to both formats and asked them about content protection. We told
them our concerns and listened to what they said. The BD Association
won."
Setos also came within a hairsbreadth of saying that he did not
favor regional coding for BD. "It's an important topic and
it has to be done right. It has to be consumer friendly. We need
flexible use. Today, when you go on a trip you have to choose what
DVDs to watch."
But under repeated questioning, Setos would say only that whether
Blu-ray will have a regional coding system remains under study.
The debate on regional coding comes as Sony's PSP portable games
and video player, and new UMD format discs, are launched in Europe
after the US and Japan. My own tests have shown that Draconian regional
coding will mean that UMD discs bought on impulse while traveling
are unlikely to play on the pocket player. And the whole point of
PSP is that it gives audio and video entertainment on the move.
When US UMD discs are slotted into a European PSP player, an error
message stubbornly hogs the screen: "This disc cannot be started.
The region code is not correct." But a PSP bought in Japan
will play discs bought in Europe.
In contrast to the impressive Blu-ray push early in the show, the
DVD Forum staged an HD-DVD event on the Sunday after many of the
press had left Berlin. Toshiba's press conference in Berlin covered
a wide range of new products, with HD-DVD buried in the middle.
Toshiba's stand at the show had only a low-key walk-through demonstration
of HD-DVD, with the screen showing computer-generated animation,
rather than an example of the 89 Hollywood movies from Paramount,
Universal, and Warner which Toshiba claims it is ready to launch.
In Berlin, Yoshio Abe, Toshiba Europe's President, said "we
are continuing to talk to Sony in order to unify standards, but
we have not succeeded yet." Abe also had to admit that there
was no press information available in Berlin because Toshiba's HQ
in Tokyo had called at 9 that morning insisting that the original
press material, on CD-ROM, must be pulled because it contained out-of-date
information on "sensitive issues." This followed reluctant
confirmation from Toshiba in the US that the promised HD-DVD launch
in North America may now have to be delayed.
"We will begin producing HD-DVD hardware in December, for
sale that month in Japan," said Abe. "We are discussing
a suitable time for our studio partners to begin US sales."
Frank Eschultz, European Product Manager for HD-DVD, claimed that
discs would be "ten times cheaper to manufacture than competing
formats, with existing plant and minimal installation cost."
But he offered no evidence to back the claim, admitted that the
price of the 30 GB dual layer pressing which HD-DVD needs to hold
a full length movie will be higher, and the "software content
owner will decide the selling price."
One of the biggest surprises was buried on the Thomson/RCA stand:
a pocket digital TV that Thomson has to call a Set Top Box with
Screen because of a deal made with TCL of China to license all TV
sales under TTE brand. The DT1060 can receive digital TV, and also
digital radio over the TV wavebands, on the move at speeds up to
160 mph.
The receiver builds on the diversity principle used in theaters,
where two side-of-stage receivers pick up signal from a radio mike
worn by a performer. But whereas the stage system continually analyzes
the signal strength picked up by the two receivers and switches
to the strongest, the Maximum Ratio Combining diversity system exploits
the way the European DVB system uses OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency
Division Multiplexing) to split the broadcast signal into several
thousand separate narrow carriers. MRC continually analyzes the
strength of the carriers picked up by the two aerials and uses the
strongest. So when one aerial is receiving strong carriers at higher
frequencies and the other aerial is getting a better signal at lower
frequencies, the two best options are seamlessly combined.
The US digital TV system does not use OFDM, so cannot work in this
way. The two digital radio systems in use in the US rely on satellites.
The MediaFLO mobile TV system developed by US cell phone giant Qualcomm
combines OFDM and cell phone technology.
IFA also saw the official launch of DRM, Digital Radio Mondiale,
the new system which lets an AM or FM broadcaster transmit digital
stereo instead of AM mono or FM stereo. Blaupunkt, Roberts, Sangean
(Korea), and Morphy Richards were all demonstrating DRM, with live
broadcasts received from Radio Luxembourg, BBC World Service, and
Deutsche Welle on AM frequencies such as 7145kHz and 15.44MHz. Voice
of America is experimenting too.
DRM is thus in direct competition with the US IBOC system which
tries to squeeze both analog and digital transmissions into the
same AM and FM channel, and is criticized for delivering poor audio
quality and causing interference to neighboring channels.
Crown Castle is already experimenting with OFDM in Pittsburgh.
So watch out for big battles ahead in the US between satellite radio,
DRM, IBOC, MediaFLO, and OFDM mobile TV.
Meanwhile Philips is finalizing plans for PC-based audio systems.
The Streamium Wireless Music Center WACS700 comes with pre-loaded
Gracenote CDDB database so that it can rip up to 750 CDs to the
hard disc and automatically add album and track titles. Because
new CDs are issued every day, the CDDB database will inevitably
be out of data by the time the customer takes it out of the box.
Philips' Frank Pauli confirms that CDDB updating will be by a CD
sent free by mail to owners after they have registered the purchase
to join Club Philips; or PC literates can download an update from
the Internet, burn it to CD, and play the CD in the Streamium.
The Cineos Media Center MCP9350i is being launched as part of the
"connected planet" range, under the new corporate slogan
"sense and sensibility."
Rudy Provoost, Philips Consumer Electronics CEO, stressed the use
of Intel chips in the 9350i, with only passing mention of the fact
that the device relies on the Windows XP operating system. Subsequent
demonstrations also played up the Intel connection while playing
down the fact that although the 9350i "all in one solution"
is "designed as a CE product" for home entertainment,
looks like a silver VCR and boasts Philips features such as "Natural
Motion" picture processing, it is in fact a disguised Microsoft
PC.
When asked how Philips will protect customers from the viruses,
worms, Trojans, dialers, and spyware that can flood into an unprotected
PC from the Internet broadband connection that the MCP offers, Provoost
referred the question to Product Strategy and Marketing Manager
Candido Peterlini.
"We are aware of the problems and are working with the best
players," assured Peterlini. "Of course if someone can
hack into the Pentagon, no solution can be 100%. But we are offering
the best solutions."
What specifically?
"The MPC will come with Norton on 90 days free trial. This
will be pre-enabled so that the customer does not have to enter
credit card details until they get a warning after three months
that the free trial is expiring."
What version of Norton?
Peterlini first said protection would be Norton Antivirus, and
was unable to say what Firewall and anti-spyware protection would
also be included. Later he corrected the information. The MCP will
come with Norton Internet Security which offers Firewall and spyware
protection as well as virus protection.
But the customer will still need to start paying a subscription
to continue the protection after 3 months, and ensure that all the
Norton protection definitions are kept up to date on a weekly "preferably
daily" basis. Otherwise Philips will be faced with warranty
claims on Media Centers that are electrically sound but have failed
within the 1-year warranty period because they are infected with
viruses.
No audio company has yet seriously addressed this potential consumer nightmare—not even Philips.
Barry Fox reports on the audio industry as columnist for the British publication Hi-Fi News. His commentary also appears in every issue of Multi Media Manufacturer.