Group seeks to set portable audio player standards

By
EE Times
(02/22/02, 11:38:28 AM EDT)

MANHASSET, N.Y. Consumer electronics manufacturers and their technology suppliers will meet in Los Angeles on Tuesday (Feb. 26) to form a group devoted to jump-starting the market for portable digital audio devices. The Portable and Networked Audio Device Manufacturers Association, as it has been temporarily dubbed, plans to address interoperability and content-protection issues that were left unresolved when the Secure Digital Music Initiative ceased its activities last year.

The group's priorities are likely to include enhancing consumers' digital-audio experience and creating standards for portable audio devices, said organizers James Fleming, who was director of technology for the Recording Industry Association of America from 1997 to 2000, and Tom White, president and chief executive officer of MIDI Manufacturers Association Inc.

"If portable device manufacturers don't step up and take charge of their own futures, the marketplace will be dominated by one or two companies," warned Fleming, who is currently president of a firm that provides technology consulting to the entertainment industry. He will serve as executive administrator of the new group.

Crucial window

Calling the next nine months "a crucial window" in which to make progress on the issues, Fleming said that without standards the market for portable audio devices will go to companies with predominant but proprietary technology. That would mean other market hopefuls would have to license that technology if they hoped to build launch products. He would not identify the dominant companies or technologies in question.

Twenty to 30 companies have reportedly shown interest in the group, although none has made a formal commitment. The first organizational meeting was held late in January; a second meeting, slated for Feb. 26, is expected to decide on a formal mission, structure, format and process for the group.

Co-organizer White said the group will take up where SDMI left off on portable devices but that it will work to avoid the mistakes that SDMI made.

The group "isn't a redo of SDMI," said White, who will be the new group's executive director.

Industry observers believe that SDMI grew too large for its structure and had too diverse a membership base to agree on anything. For instance, the group could not reach consensus on a standard framework for digital audio content protection for portable devices.

That was because the record labels held so much power in the group that their concerns about content piracy became the priority, some observers claim. SDMI became inactive shortly after executive director Leonardo Chiariglione left in January 2001.

"After SDMI did not work out real well, Jim [Fleming] came to me," White said. As the two saw it, "the record industry had its concerns, and the IT group at SDMI [which comprised computer manufacturers] had certain things they intended to do, but the consumer electronics industry really never was represented as a group at SDMI."

White said the new group seeks to change that. One task will be to correct the lack of standards for portable-device content protection.

The new group will differ from SDMI in that it will focus on player-device vendors and their suppliers, and there will be requirements for membership. Neither Fleming nor White would say whether content providers, such as record labels, will be allowed to join. They said they will leave that matter up to the group's members.

E.R. (Randy) Cole, manager of digital audio and media technologies at Texas Instruments Inc. (Dallas), said TI plans to participate in the meeting and is optimistic that the group can make meaningful progress, "if they pick a set of reasonable goals that provide good value to the consumer" and don't lose their focus.

Cole said he hopes the group works on enhancing the customer experience with digital music because "right now, people don't have a great customer experience with digital music on the Net."