DiiVA CONSORTIUM DEMONSTRATES INNOVATIVE INTERFACE TECHNOLOGY DESIGNED TO ENHANCE
THE DIGITAL HOME EXPERIENCE
Chinese-led Consortium Gets Key Endorsement from the China Digital Home Industry Alliance and Sets Its Sights on Making DiiVA a Global Consumer Electronics Standard
Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Las Vegas, Nev., January 7, 2009—Debuting at CES, the Digital Interactive Interface for Video & Audio (DiiVA) Consortium today announced it will be demonstrating its innovative interface technology, which enables a new home-networking infrastructure that can carry uncompressed video, bi-directional audio and high-speed data through standard cables such as CAT6. Consortium officials report that its DiiVA standard is poised to deliver high-definition (HD) content and data throughout the home—allowing CE devices to be networked in a way that is simple to set up and easy to use. Specifically, by merging multimedia and data communications into a single cost-effective interface, DiiVA is an ideal solution for bridging CE, personal computers and mobile devices within a single home network—making it simpler to have HD content available anywhere in a home.
Recently, DiiVA was heralded as “The Most Innovative Digital Home Interactive Application” by the China Digital Home Industry Alliance. DiiVA provides the necessary new features to enable Chinese CE manufacturers to service the rapidly growing Chinese CE markets in conjunction with government-led Digital Home initiatives.
“With its new features, DiiVA is poised to drive not only the Chinese CE market but will also impact the way the world will interact with their televisions,” said Mrs. Weimin Bai, Secretary General of the China Video Industry Association (CVIA). “DiiVA can change the competitive landscape among CE manufacturers in China and also across markets around the globe, in the near future. DiiVA will enable a network of entertainment and information in the home, while also allowing the CE industry to finally take advantage of broadband internet connections, HD content and the home network.”
Mr. Peng Ping, Managing Director of Guangdong Province's Technology Infrastructure Development Bureau, notes, “DiiVA can bring true Digital Home a reality with the strong support from China’s central government. Guangdong Province, a major manufacturing center for HDTVs, is looking forward to becoming the first Chinese province to deploy DiiVA-enabled CE devices. We will work together with many CE manufacturers to make DiiVA a successful standard in China and abroad.”
About DiiVA
DiiVA technology combines a reliable, high-speed, bi-directional data channel with an uncompressed video and audio channel. Whereas point-to-point interfaces such as USB and HDMI only contain a Physical and Link layer, the DiiVA standard combines the Physical and Link layers with an additional Networking and Transport layers to make DiiVA devices network capable for use in a personal domain. For end-users this means that a single DiiVA port is capable of connecting and controlling multiple devices on the network. Digital TVs and other CE devices connected using DiiVA connections can offer user-friendly interactive interfaces for consumers who make their choices based on the content rather than connection. Today content is tied to a device like music to an iPod® and movies to a DVD. With DiiVA—which enables a secure home network and a personal domain—content between devices like a TV, phone or PC within the home network can be securely shared.
With a maximum bandwidth of 13.5Gbps link speed for video, uncompressed video can be sent through the network from any DiiVA-enabled source to any DiiVA-enabled display. The bi-directional data channel is capable of simultaneously sending multiple protocols such as high-definition audio, USB and Gigabit Ethernet. The DiiVA specification includes error correction mechanisms for the data channels—ensuring that data packets are reliably transferred. Consumers can benefit from the simultaneous transmissions of multimedia and data on their digital TVs by running myriad applications such as thumbnail driven menus, online video chat and internet browsing while video still plays in the background—all of this, with only a single cable.
DiiVA will be deployed using cost-effective transmitters on source devices such as DVD players, PCs and mobile phones. Display devices will incorporate DiiVA receivers. DiiVA switches can be integrated into AV receivers or source devices to enable DiiVA to work in a daisy chain configuration. With its bi-directional data channel, DiiVA is a complementary technology to emerging wireless video/data standards such as Wireless High Definition Interface (WHDI) which the DiiVA promoters plan to collaborate with in order to bring consumers seamless interoperability between the standards.
Summing up the potential DiiVA holds, Mr. Yan Xiao-Lin, Senior Vice President of R&D at TCL, states, “As one of the Promoters of the DiiVA Consortium, TCL is excited to offer DiiVA enabled devices which will make our products more competitive in Chinese markets. DiiVA enabled CE devices will open new doors for Chinese brands to successfully compete in worldwide markets as it provides innovative features that will delight customers.”
The DiiVA specification is currently being finalized and reviewed by the Promoters. The specification will be available for public review at the end of January. Major Japanese and Korean CE manufacturers as well as major system-on-chip makers for HDTVs, STBs and high definition DVD have joined the DiiVA consortium as part of technical steering committee and are reviewing the current version of the specification. The official release version of the specification will be ready by the end of March 2009 and the first DiiVA-enabled products are expected to be released at the end of 2009.
About the DiiVA Consortium
Changhong, Haier, Hisense, Konka, Panda, Skyworth, SVA, TCL and Synerchip have joined together to form the DiiVA (Digital Interactive Interface for Video & Audio) Working Group, an industry consortium whose mission is to build the next-generation interactive TV and home CE networking standard. DiiVA technology combines a reliable high speed bi-directional data channel in addition to an uncompressed video and audio channel to allow users to connect, configure and control various home CE devices from their Digital TVs. As consumers increasingly use more electronic entertainment devices and digital home appliances, the DIVA interface will streamline and simplify all the technology in the home, offering ease of connection and use while maximizing the entertainment experience. For those wanting more information about becoming an adopter to the specification, please visit http://www.diiva.org.
The consortium will host product demonstrations based on DiiVA technology at the Flamingo Hotel and Casino (DiiVA Promoters meeting room) during CES, which will be held from January 8-11. Those interested in seeing the demonstration or meeting with key members of the DiiVA consortium, please contact:
‧(In English) Steve Yum, Synerchip, 408-516-4285, syum@synerchip.com
‧(In Chinese) Hao Ya-Bin, China Video Industry Association, +86-10-6820-7282, haoyb@mei.cec.gov.cn
‧(Media only) Marie Labrie, MCA, 650-968-8900, mlabrie@mcapr.com
Note to Editors: The name of the DiiVA specification was recently changed from DIVA (Digital Interface for Video & Audio) to DiiVA (Digital Interactive Interface for Video & Audio) to emphasize the interactive aspects of the technology.
