Vision - January/February 2009 - (Page 52) CEAnewsline technology & standards Custom Installation Headlines New CEA Standards By Brian Markwalter hile attendees attended sessions at CEA’s Industry Forum last October in Las Vegas, participants of the co-located CEA Technology & Standards Forum were busy ramping up new work in a variety of hot areas for consumer electronics. The work ranges from the high-touch custom design and installation market to the high-volume portable device category. CEA and CEDIA Combine Forces on Residential Systems CEA and CEDIA created a joint committee called R10 to establish co-branded bulletins and standards for design and installation of residential systems. Leading the new effort are co-chairs Mario Leone, Electronic Solutions Company and Walt Zerbe, Russound. The group hit the ground running by taking over maintenance of the popular CEA-2030 Multi-room Audio Cabling Standard. The committee also has begun work on CEA/CEDIA Home Theater Recommended Practice: Audio Design. R10’s projects will focus more on application and best practices for complete systems and will span many product categories. If you sell into the residential systems market or do custom design and want to get involved, visit the link at the end of this article. CEA Standards Developers Focus on Portable/Handheld Devices Looking several years down the road to see what might fuel growth in the CE industry, a few trends seem obvious. One of these is that consumers will continue to demand portable and handheld devices that let them consolidate more functions onto one product. Another is consumers will continue to demand in-home products that engross them in their audio and video entertainment. And yet another is that consumers will continue to demand in-vehicle products that let them personalize their experience and maximize their productivity while on the road. Most agree that consumers will Thinkstock Images/Jupiter Images W want to consume and share the content on their portable devices by connecting them to in-home and in-vehicle audio and video systems, and to each other. CEA’s Technology & Standards Council held a Discovery Group meeting at Forum to consider the need for CE industry technical standards related to portable and handheld devices. This group concluded that industry standards could be very beneficial, and the council then formed a small task group to look into how best to incorporate such work into CEA’s standards development activities. It is expected that there will be great progress in the development of these standards in 2009. The Discovery Group identified a list of possible standards activities that could benefit both consumers and industry. The four areas identified as initial targets for further work included metadata, audio/video codecs, power and charging, and device discovery. Metadata is additional information that accompanies an electronic file. Common forms of metadata include song or movie titles, artist names and similar information. There are many audio/video codecs, the programs used to record and play back content. There are also many different ways to power or charge a portable device. One specific way not yet in common use is wireless charging, where a portable device can be charged without sitting in a cradle or being connected by wire to a power source. Device discovery refers to the methods used by different devices to recognize other devices to which they are connected. These topics, and potentially others, will be considered as CEA expands its standards setting work to include portable and handheld devices. The Third Dimension Television has undergone profound changes in the last decade. Consider not only the variety of content sources and ability to watch what you want when you want, but the beauty of the displays that have transformed from CRTs with 480 interlaced lines of resolution to widescreen, hang-on-thewall flat panels with full HD quality at 1080 lines progressively scanned. How do you top that? Many in the industry believe the way to raise the bar on the video experience is to deliver three dimensional (3D) images and to do a better job of it than the 1950’s theater experience using color filter glasses. The second Discovery Group meeting held at Forum in Las Vegas was on the subject of the need for standards related to three dimensional video. Companies ranging from studios, to 3D technology developers, chip companies and TV manufacturers reviewed the state of 3D technology and discussed the areas that made most sense for CEA to set standards. As might be expected in a nascent market like 3D video in the home, there are many pieces that could be standardized. Some of the potential standards areas include defining how to carry 3D video on the HDMI port, common terminology for 3D and a variety of issues related to mixed 2D and 3D content, captions and on screen menus. In response, CEA’s R4 Video Systems Committee established a task force to delve deeper into the complex issue of 3D video standards to decide what standards projects should be undertaken. The DTV Interface Subcommittee also empowered the group that maintains CEA-861, the basis of HDMI, to consider how best to transport 3D encoded video on HDMI. This year should see a great deal of activity in CEA’s video standards groups to establish the key interoperability standards for 3D video in the home. Interested in joining any of CEA’s standards development efforts? Visit www. CE.org/Standards/1447.asp. • 52 January/February 2009 www.ce.org http://www.CE.org/Standards/1447.asp http://www.CE.org/Standards/1447.asp http://www.ce.org
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