MERGING DTV AND DVD:

BRIDGING THE GREAT DIVIDE BETWEEN THE STREAMS

  • Speakers:
    • Yoram Ariel, Optibase
    Pamela Arthur, Westport Media Resources
    Joe Matheny, Spruce Technologies
    Bob Saffari, C-Cube Microsystems
  • Date & time: TUESDAY23 FEBRUARY 1999
    • 6:30 PM social hour + Equipment Demo
    7:30 PM program begins
  • Meeting organizer/moderator: Richard Mizer, Digital Ventures Diversified

    • Program:

    Last month, over 250 SMPTE, AES, and SBE members and guests saw one ofthe first public demonstrations in the Bay Area of over-the-air (H)DTVbroadcasting. The technology is real, it's coming, and people are enthusiasticabout it. Meanwhile, digital terrestrial, satellite, and cable transmissionswill clearly receive competition for people's viewing time from DVD-Videoand DVD-ROM sources. But there's a BIG problem with DVD playback: We havetwo new, and as yet unconnected, digital appliances coming to our livingrooms and offices -- DTV and DVD.

    "THE HEARTBREAK OF ANALOG": Currently, if you want to play your digitalDVD picture and sound through your digital TV monitor, you have to convert-- and downgrade -- the signal to ANALOG to connect your DVD player toyour DTV! This is because DVDs are multiplexed as "program streams", whileDTV uses "transport streams". If we don't find a way to converge thesetwo incompatible multiplexing technologies, we will, for years, find ourselvesin the ridiculous position of having to use analog baseband video to bridgedigital signals. We urgently need more convergence between DVD-type "programstream" multiplexing and DTV-type "transport stream" multiplexing.

    BRIDGING THE GAP: Understanding how to bridge these two bitstreams alsohelps explain the theory and practice of digitization, compression, anddistribution of all flavors of digital video and audio. Most authoring-encoderhardware for DVD cannot be used for DTV applications, because of the non-real-timeencoding problem and other technical issues. If certain modifications weremade, however, most encoder hardware for DVD could be used for DTV applications,and vice versa.

    VOD -- VIDEO ON DEMAND: "The Next Big Thing" will require meeting thedemand for authoring for VOD in the file server market. VOD program-streamvs.  transport-stream technology must converge to take advantage ofvariable bit-rate compression technology and storage optimization.

    Besides program stream vs. transport stream multiplexing, some of therelated issues our panel will cover include: constant bit-rate vs. variablebit-rate compression; quantitative and qualitative measurements of real-timebroadcast MPEG vs. offline-authored MPEG; interlace vs. progressive scan;interconnect options, including IEEE-1394 (Firewire); HD-DVD; the Internet;and audio options, including Dolby AC-3, DTS, MPEG, and PCM.

    THE IMPORTANCE OF STANDARDS:  In the delivery of digital bitstreams,SMPTE, AES, and SBE standards are becoming increasingly important in sortingout conflicting issues and needs. Rich Mizer currently serves on severalSMPTE standards committees working on these issues and will describe thisvital effort.
     

    Location:

    DIRECTIONS:  Take 101 to ShorelineBlvd.; go towards Bay; left at Amphitheater Pwy; left into SGI parkinglot.

    Silicon Graphics Inc.
    1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy.
    Building 40 -- the newSGI Presentation Center

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