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180 Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About DVD<br />
ECMA International has developed international standards for DVD-<br />
ROM (part 1, the smallest part of the DVD spec), available for free download<br />
as ECMA-267 and ECMA-268 from www.ecma-international.org. ECMA<br />
has also standardized DVD-R in ECMA-279, DVD-RAM in ECMA-272 and<br />
ECMA-273, and DVD�RW as ECMA-274 (see “What About Recordable<br />
DVD: DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD�RW, and DVD�R?” in <strong>Chapter</strong> 4,<br />
“DVDs and Computers”). Unfortunately, ECMA has the annoying habit of<br />
spelling “disc” wrong. Also confusing, if you’re not from Europe, is ECMA’s<br />
use of a comma instead of a period for the decimal point.<br />
The specification for the UDF file system used by DVD is available from<br />
www.osta.org.<br />
Many technical details of the DVD-Video format are available at the<br />
DVD-Video Information page (www.mpucoder.com/dvd/).<br />
Any company making DVD products must license essential technology<br />
patents from a Philips/Pioneer/Sony pool (3.5 percent per player, minimum<br />
$5; additional $2.50 for Video CD compatibility; 5 cents per disc), a Hitachi/<br />
Matsushita/Mitsubishi/Time Warner/Toshiba/Victor pool (4 percent per<br />
player or drive, minimum $4; 4 percent per DVD decoder, minimum $1; 7.5<br />
cents per disc) and from Thomson. Patent royalties may also be owed to<br />
Discovision Associates, which owns about 1300 optical disc patents (usually<br />
paid by the replicator).<br />
The licensor of CSS encryption technology is DVD CCA (Copy Control<br />
Association), a non-profit trade association with offices at 225 B Cochrane<br />
Circle, Morgan Hill, CA. There is a $10,000 initial licensing fee, but no perproduct<br />
royalties. Send license requests to css-license@lmicp.com, technical<br />
info requests to css-info@lmicp.com. Before December 15, 1999, CSS<br />
licensing was administered on an interim basis by Matsushita.<br />
Macrovision licenses its analog antirecording technology to hardware<br />
makers. There is a $30,000 initial charge, with a $15,000 yearly renewal fee.<br />
The fees support certification of players to ensure widest compatibility with<br />
televisions. There are no royalty charges for player manufacturers. Macrovision<br />
charges a royalty to content publishers (approximately 4 to 10 cents<br />
per disc, compared to 2 to 5 cents for a VHS tape).<br />
Dolby licenses Dolby Digital decoders for $0.26 per channel. Philips, on<br />
behalf of CCETT and IRT, also charges $0.20 per channel (maximum of<br />
$0.60 per player) for Dolby Digital patents, along with $0.003 per disc.<br />
An MPEG-2 patent license is required from MPEG LA (MPEG Licensing<br />
Adminstrator). Cost is $2.50 for a DVD player or decoder card and 4 cents<br />
for each DVD disc, although there seems to be disagreement on whether<br />
content producers owe royalties for discs.<br />
Many DVD players are also Video CD (VCD) players. Philips licenses the<br />
Video CD format and patents on behalf of themselves, Sony, JVC,
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