Oracle Corporation, the world's leading supplier of software for managing information, is enabling the Information Age with Oracle Media solutions. This revolutionary suite of software products and services provides complete end-to-end solutions for implementing, running, and managing interactive multimedia applications - from interactive television trials, to corporate training, to CD-ROM titles, and more.
Based on experience in developing and deploying interactive services, Oracle brings a wealth of practical knowledge to the standards process. To help speed stand-ardization of the software interfaces deemed critical by government and industry players, Oracle actively participates in a number of international standards bodies and industry trade associations, including the Digital Audio Visual Council (DAVIC), the Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG), the Interactive Multimedia Association (IMA), and the Corporation for Open Systems (COS).
Protecting Investments on the Information Highway
By developing and endorsing open standards, Oracle believes trade associations and standards bodies will encourage both service providers and con-sumers to invest in new tech-nologies, equipment, and services offered on the Information Highway. For example, once standards are adopted for set-top devices, PCs, and other information appliances, consumers won't have to worry about losing their investments if they change service providers or move across the country. These appliances will work anywhere, just like today's TVs and VCRs.
Open Standards
Oracle defines "open stand-ards" as interface specifica-tions that are:
• Barrier-free - open standards are published and available, without prohi-bitive royalties or licensing fees, to anyone wanting to implement the specification. Specific implementations of software based on the standard interface specification, however, may be sold or licensed.
• Non-proprietary - open standards are not owned by an individual corporation or consortium. Standard interface specifications should be "owned" by standards groups that are open to wide participation by members of the industry.
• Extensible - open standards can be modified, clarified, or refined as the industry grows and the require-ments for the interfaces become more clear and
better understood.
The information industry must work to avoid closed, inflexible, or static specifi-cations that limit function-ality or future innovation and enhancement of services and equipment.
Critical Interfaces
To ensure interoperability between components on the Information Highway, the industry must standardize interfaces for set-top and information appliances and interactive video services in three areas:
• Software interfaces for interoperability, such as decompression algorithms
and network protocols
• Manufacturing interfaces for multivendor support,
such as bus architectures for internal set-top device communication and physical network interfaces for cable, T1, etc.
• Minimum standards of service quality and set-top device capability, such as minimum network latencies (quality of service) and minimum RAM requirements (capability of service)
Software Interfaces
Of these three areas, Oracle's expertise is in software inter-faces. Of the hundreds of software interfaces that allow interactive networks to operate, standards for these four are essential:
• Network protocol
• Set-top connect protocol
• Digital video compression
• Software interfaces for hardware authentication based on unique serial numbers
Setting standard specifications for these four interfaces will allow set-top devices and other information appliances to interoperate on the most basic level.
As part of its standards efforts, Oracle has presented Oracle Media Net™ and other inno-vative technologies to a number of industry associations and standards bodies as the tech-nologies best suited for standardization.
In addition, Oracle is committed to ensuring that Oracle Media products and services will comply with standards as they are adopted by the industry. As a result, businesses that invest in Oracle Media solutions will be able to leverage their investments now and in the future, no matter what software or hardware standards are set.
Standards Bodies
Numerous standards bodies and industry trade associations are focusing on identifying and endorsing appropriate technologies for standard-ization. Oracle is actively involved in the efforts of the following groups:
DAVIC
Oracle is an establishing member of the Digital Audio Visual Council (DAVIC), an international industry trade association recently formed
to promote the adoption of standards for Video on Demand systems. Oracle has recently submitted a number of technologies in response to DAVIC's first Call for Proposals. Technologies sub-mitted include a communica-tions model for interactive service components and an innovative service gateway architecture developed by Oracle and submitted jointly with NEC.
MPEG
The Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is a subgroup of the ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee that has standardized video compres-sion methods. The Digital Storage Media - Command and Control subgroup (DSM-CC), is working on standards for network transmission and VCR-type control of MPEG compressed video. Oracle is an active participant in the stand-ards discussions in these groups and has jointly sub-mitted a set-top connect protocol developed and deployed by Oracle.
IMA
The Interactive Multimedia Association (IMA) has recently formed a Set-Top Systems Focus Group as a part of its Compatibility Project. The Focus Group is currently working to deter-mine how to ensure the interoperability of set-top devices through software standardization. Oracle chairs the Focus Group and is a Sustaining Member of the IMA.
Corporation for Open Systems
The Corporation for Open Systems has recently initiated the formation of an Open Set-Top Executive Interest Group (EIG). The EIG will encourage discussions between various providers of interactive services. Oracle participates in these discu-ssions, which are intended to speed adoption of common technologies for deploying interactive networks.
Oracle Media Solutions - Enabling the Information Age
Oracle Media solutions provide complete, end-to-end software and services for the Information Highway, from the back-end media server software to the front-end development tools for creating interactive, multi-media applications. The Oracle Media suite of soft-ware and services includes Oracle Media Server™, Oracle Media Net, and Oracle Media Objects™.
For more information, contact the Oracle Interactive Multimedia Products group at 415.506.7000.
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To offer our customers the most complete and effective information
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Oracle is a registered trademark, and Oracle Media Server, Oracle Media Net and Oracle Media Objects are trademarks, of Oracle Corporation.
All other company and product names mentioned are used for identification purposes only, and may be trademarks of their respective owners.
