MPV Support Builds Momentum
at PMA 2004

OSTA’s MusicPhotoVideo™ (MPV™) specification for the management of digital music, photo, and video content was highly visible at multiple events held during the recent 2004 Photo Marketing Association (PMA) Annual Trade Show and Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada.

A significant milestone for MPV at PMA was achieved as industry-leading digital camera manufacturers and imaging software companies, including HP, Nikon Corporation, Olympus Corporation, Samsung Electronics Ltd. (Samsung Techwin Co., Ltd.) and Software Architects, Inc., announced plans to implement the MPV specification for improved compatibility and playback of digital media content by PCs and consumer electronic (CE) devices. Consumers with MPV-enabled DVD players, digital video recorders (DVRs) and PC software applications will enjoy faster and better playback and storing of digital photos and video captured on their MPV-enabled digital cameras. (Click here for the complete announcement.)

Representatives from HP (Pieter van Zee, Senior Architect is shown below), Konica Minolta, Nikon, Olympus and Samsung participated with OSTA executives in a press conference to announce their MPV implementation plans. They are the first companies to utilize the MPV specification to enhance a variety of CE products with a standard way to access digital photo playlists that support voice annotation and playback of background music in slideshows.

 

“Today, many consumers organize their digital photos into collections, but there has been no standard way to interchange photo collections from computers to CE devices or between CE devices. MPV provides a simple and standard content management solution for the interchange of media collections, and we are delighted to announce its implementation into products from leading manufacturers.”

Pieter van Zee, MPV Working Group Chairman and Senior Architect, HP

“To ensure the highest level of satisfaction for consumers, the industry must work together to achieve the highest level of compatibility between recordable DVD discs and a diverse range of players and DVD drives. Fine-tuning manufacturing processes to achieve universal compatibility is a win-win situation for consumers and the companies involved, and everyone will benefit as a result.”

Dr. Subutai Ahmad, OSTA DVD Compatibility Committee Chairman and Vice President of Engineering, YesVideo

 

 

Industry-wide Cooperation
Urged to Achieve Universal
DVD Compatibility

 

OSTA’s DVD Compatibility Committee is encouraging DVD manufacturers worldwide to work together to achieve the highest levels of compatibility for recordable DVDs. In an editorial published in One-to-One Magazine, Dr. Subutai Ahmed, DVD Compatibility Chairman for OSTA, called for greater involvement from a wider representation of companies in the DVD industry.

In January, at the 2004 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Ahmed also hosted an open forum for manufacturers, reporters and other interested parties to learn more about, or become involved with, OSTA’s DVD compatibility testing efforts. Click here for a copy of the presentation. Currently, the committee, in collaboration with the DVD Association (DVDA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), is testing DVD recordable drives and media and providing feedback to manufacturers in an effort to improve compatibility between different DVD recordable drives and media.

While significant progress has been made to improve compatibility in newer drives and players, there is still work to be done. In the first phase of the study completed in Sept. 2003, tests indicated that compatibility rates are much higher for newer drives and players, and that the type of media, whether writable or rewritable, is not a significant factor. The study found that the most critical factor in all DVD disc and drive compatibility comparisons is the quality of media, not the format (DVD-R and DVD+R are writable while DVD-RW, DVD+RW are rewritable) or brand of drive. For more info, see our press release on the results.

The first round of testing found that the quality of recordable DVD media plays the key role in compatibility. By implementing a second phase of testing in conjunction with major DVD drive and media manufacturers, DVDA, NIST and OSTA are continuing their partnership by providing an impartial process for measuring and improving compatibility to assist DVD media and drive manufacturers in achieving the industry goal of 100 percent compatibility. For further information on OSTA’s

 

MPV Developers Training
Seminar to be held in Tokyo

A Developers Training seminar on MPV will be held in Tokyo (Shinjuku), on April 7, 2004, to provide implementation tips and information to developers and manufacturers interested in integrating the new standard in their products. The focus will be on implementation of MPV in digital cameras, DVD players/recorders, PC software applications and home networking products.

Olympus Corporation is providing a training room for the seminar in their Shinjuku office. OSTA executives and representatives from HP, Konica Minolta, Olympus, Samsung and Software Architects will conduct the seminar. The day will begin with an overview of MPV, with testimonials and demonstrations from companies that have already designed the specification into their products. Subsequent technical sessions will review the MPV core specification, as well as specific Profile that extend the specification for Music, Consumer Electronics, Cameras, and Portable Storage. Additional topics include compatibility testing, logo licensing, and implementation of MPV in cameras, DVD players and software. For more info, visit www.osta.org/mpv. To RSVP, contact ikuko.sugo@hp.com.

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Optical Storage Symposium 2004

Save the date for OSS 2004, to be held Oct. 17-19, 2004, at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. Once again, the Symposium will be co-located with the Consumer Electronics Association’s Industry Forum to enable attendees of both events to network and attend sessions of interest.

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Commercial Optical Storage
Applications Solutions Posted Online

OSTA’s newest committee, Commercial Optical Storage Applications (COSA) is focusing on archival applications. COSA is a sub committee of OSTA committed to being the global authority and information repository on optical data archival systems, applications, and solutions for regulatory markets that dictate long-term storage in a non-alterable format.

COSA evolved from the High Performance Technical Committee as a marketing and educational group to address the need for compliance storage products in the light of emerging new requirements in regulated industries such as Government, Medical, Financial and Legal.

COSA is helping manufactures to identify and address the needs of compliant, removable, non-alterable storage products such as optical drives and libraries. Optical technology vendors recognize the need to create a strong organized approach to introduce products that meet critical business needs and to educate technical resellers and service providers.

Today, vendors realize the need to develop a stronger marketing and technical training strategy that would enable them to compete for a larger share of the storage market segment.

 

Optical Storage Technology Association
19925 Stevens Creek Blvd. Cupertino, CA 95014 USA

David Bunzel, President

Phone: (408) 253-3695

Fax: (408) 253-9938

E-mail: debbieostaorg

Visit us on the Web at www.osta.org

Newsletter Editor
Jan Johnson jan@multipathcom.com

 

 

What are the objectives of COSA?

COSA’s charter is to promote storage solutions that incorporate optical storage technology to meet the growing need for regulatory compliance with regards to long-term data retention and/or in a non-alterable format.

• Provide education and information about compliance storage technologies to the industry, resellers and end user customers; explain how these technologies operate; define the integration process that enables its use.

• Provide growth and development in markets for automated storage technology

To find industry papers on implemented solutions in various vertical markets, visit the COSA section of the OSTA website at http://www.osta.org/technology/cosa.htm. Current white papers posted describe solutions implemented by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command; CD Libraries in the Insurance industry; a medical research library tracking clinical trials for new drug development, and a secure optical library for the financial and legal industries. In addition you will also find white papers on data retention requirements and technical updates. These papers will be updated on an ongoing basis, so please be sure to check back.

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Moving Forward

I hope you have found this newsletter to be a useful glimpse into the many initiatives that OSTA has underway to support its charter as an independent trade organization promoting the use of optical storage technologies and products. OSTA’s MultiRead Committee has been hard at work to establish the open and royalty-free MPV specification for improved compatibility and playback of digital media content by PCs and consumer electronic (CE) devices. As you can see from the many activities at PMA and the recent adoption by global industry leaders, our efforts are clearly beginning to bear fruit. OSTA has also been an instrumental force in efforts to improve DVD compatibility by closely collaborating with manufacturers around the globe to push the agenda the DVD compatibility issue. Finally, we’re very excited about the work our COSA committee to address solutions for long-term archival storage.

We welcome any feedback you may have on this newsletter, and encourage interested industry participants to attend our next quarterly meeting, which will be held June 14 to 16, 2004 at the Embassy Suites, 250 Gateway Boulevard, South San Francisco, California 94080-7018. For more information on membership, visit our website at www.osta.org
contact Debbie Maguire, OSTA Administrator, at (408) 253-3695.