1999-10-05 ,
Press Releases From Customers/Partners

Concluded discussions lead way for further development of HAVi and home networking solutions

Philips today announced that it has reached an agreement with the Digital Transmission Licensing Administrator (DTLA) authority - also known as the '5C' group - on the application of copy protection technology on products featuring IEEE1394 connectivity.

Philips will now apply the 5C solution to 1394-based products. The agreement will also support the further development of HAVi (Home Audio/Video interoperability), the IEEE1394-based home networking standard for seamless interoperability between digital audio and video consumer devices.

Philips had been working on a similar copy protection system based on a publicly available DES algorithm. However, multiple copy protection systems would lead to unnecessary and more expensive provisions in products to cope with the variations. This would not be beneficial to the end-consumer.

Roel Kramer, Chief Technology Officer of Philips Consumer Electronics, says "Philips believes this agreement will be to the benefit of our customers and the market as a whole in standardising as much as possible interconnection between consumer electronics products."

He added: "A cornerstone of the consumer electronics market has been the standardised interconnection of products. We want to preserve this important feature and are pleased to be able to conclude the licensing issue with the 5C companies."

Phil Pollok, Vice President and General Manager of Interconnectivity for Philips Semiconductors states, "Philips is excited to move forward with the application of the 5C solution to the 1394 technology we offer today. We plan to release 1394 products complete with 5C authentication and protocol stacks early in 2000."

The growth of digital consumer electronics products has prompted interest by the entertainment, electronics, broadcast and computing industries, to develop mutually acceptable and consumer-friendly methods of protecting the copyright of digital content, distributed between devices and networks. Philips' support of the 5C proposal will help consolidate the adoption of a workable solution.

The Digital Transmission Licensing Administrator is an independent authority established by a group of five companies - Hitachi, Ltd., Intel Corporation, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Sony Corporation and Toshiba Corporation. The licensing of their DTCP (Digital Transmission Content Protection) method started on September 23, last year.

Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands is one of the world's biggest electronics companies and Europe's largest, with sales of US$ 33.9 billion in 1998. It is a global leader in color television sets, lighting, electric shavers, color picture tubes for televisions and monitors, and one-chip TV products. Its 227,600 employees in more than 60 countries are active in the areas of lighting, consumer electronics, domestic appliances, components, semiconductors, medical systems, business electronics, and IT services (Origin). Philips is quoted on the NYSE, London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and other stock exchanges.

News from Philips is located at  www.news.philips.com