DVD-Audio Moves Closer to Reality

Electronic News, March 15, 1999

Burbank, Calif.- Removing one of the last remaining barriers to the adoption of DVD-audio technology, major consumer electronics vendors have agreed on a standard for content protection.

IBM Corp., Intel Corp., Matsushita Electric Industries Ltd., and Toshiba Corp. agreed on a specification for securing next generation music formatted discs. The agreement has been in development for the past year in conjunction with music heavyweights BMG, EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group.

The agreement answers the question of content protection, which has been one of the final remaining concerns that have prevented content providers from endorsing the technology.

The content protection framework utilizes watermark and encryption technologies to protect the music made available on prerecorded DVD- audio discs. With this encryption in place, only licensed players can play licensed media. Any disc that does not include the watermark or encryption traits will not be able to play.

"The framework was designed to satisfy both the music industry's copyright protection requirements and the consumers' need to protect their existing audio investments," said Alan Bell, IBM program director and co-chairman for the copy protection technical working group.

The framework also was designed to represent all interests involved, including the content owners, consumers, PC OEMs and hardware manufacturers. These same companies involved are set to promote DVD- audio when the DVD-audio 1.0 specification is delivered sometime this year.

Al Smith, senior vice president at Sony Music, said the creation of watermarking and encryption technologies for DVD-audio addresses one of Sony's main concerns and a problem that has been hampering music artists from accepting the new technology.

"(The protection) is a flexible and creative approach to meeting the needs of the artists and content owners while opening up new and varied opportunities for consumers," said Roger Faxon, senior vice president of business development at EMI Music. "If broadly implemented, the framework will certainly set the stage for a speedy and successful introduction of DVD-audio."

Why DVD-audio? The makers of the technology and the content say it will improve the quality of sound for home theater listeners as well as the audio in a car or home stereo. It will also enable consumers to view artwork, liner notes and music videos through a DVD-ROM on a PC.

These enhancements to regular compact discs are considered to be the next generation of where music is headed. The release of the copy protection framework is viewed as one of the last major hurdles to enabling DVD-audio to become commercially available sometime this year.

The content protection framework for DVD-audio is expected to be included in the initial 1.0 specification when it is released.