EEtimes reports that Philips Semiconductors hopes to ignite production of DVD players featuring its write-once, rewriteable format by releasing a reference design that will help manufacturers build DVD+R/DVD+RW recorders much easier.
This should also encourage system OEMs in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and Turkey to build DVD+RW drives and thus triggering volume production of DVD+RW systems to make them cost effective replacements for VCRs in time for Christmas 2003.
Philips Semiconductors is gambling that the DVD+RW format will succeed, though the battle of recordable DVD formats remains unsettled on the global market. Chief executive officer Scott McGregor stated his commitment to DVD+RW in a recent interview: "The war isn't over, but we know who is going to win," McGregor said. |
Philips Semiconductors decided two and a half years ago to pursue the market for recordable DVD players rather than playback-only systems, Keunen said. The company believes it will solidify the position of DVD+R/DVD+RW by strictly focusing its software development efforts on the format.
The company's reference design consists of a digital board that holds Philips Semiconductors' pnx7100 MPEG-2 audio/video and graphics codec and its VAE8020 optical recorder engine; and an analog board equipped with a power supply, tuner, and other functions. The reference design comes with a complete DVD+RW software stack designed to run on top of the pnx7100. The software stack guarantees a system's compliance to the DVD+R/DVD+RW standard, the company said. Philips Semiconductors will also provide custom software to customers if necessary
Source: EEtimes.com
