Gizmodo: standards

America Finally Has a Mobile DTV Standard

Chris Jacob — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:23:00 EDT

After plenty of half-hearted attempts at mobile video from wireless carriers and Qualcomm, the ATSC has defined a standard that should, at long last, bring live streaming video to our phones. About time we got a DMB equivalent.

Keep in mind we're not talking about VCast, Sprint TV or whatever other service your carrier offers. This is the real deal. Live streaming TV straight from the networks to mobile devices. That could mean live sports, live sitcoms, live whatever-you-can-think-of TV on your phone.

Hopefully the mobile DVR apps will follow. [Press Release via Crunchgear]

Apple's Got a New Video Format: iFrame

matt buchanan — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:50:06 EDT

The most interesting about the iMovie update that dropped yesterday is that "improves compatibility" with camcorders using the iFrame video format. The iFrame video format, you say? Why yes, it's a new video format from Apple.

iFrame's based on industry-standard codecs H.264 and AAC, but it's got a standard res of 960x540 and it's designed by Apple "to speed up importing and editing by keeping the content in its native recorded format while editing."

Currently, the only two camcorders using iFrame are the Sanyo VPC-HD2000A and VPC-FH1A. The question is what other cameras are gonna be using it and how much of a real standard iFrame's going to be. We all know how much Apple loves setting standards. [Apple via Cnet]

mSATA: It's Like SATA But Smaller

Mark Wilson — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:00:00 EDT

You've heard of SATA. It's the technology used for the majority of today's hard drives and people generally like it. But SATA wasn't designed for tiny portables. That's why the guys behind SATA are introducing mini-SATA, or mSATA for short.

Supporting 1.5 Gb/s and 3.0 Gb/s transfer rates (peaking at half the speed of existing SATA), mSATA is intended for drives that are roughly the size of a business card.

Check out that lead shot. On the left, you see a small Toshiba drive using a traditional SATA connector. On the right, you see a Toshiba drive using the mSATA standard. (Incidentally, Toshiba will be offering that flash drive in 30 and 62GB sizes with 180MB/s read speeds and 50MB/s writes.) The end products aren't really so different in terms of size, but the mSATA connection itself is, what, half the footprint of SATA?

Sounds good to us. [mSATA and Toshiba via Engadget]

Apple's Mini DisplayPort Will Be Official Part of DisplayPort 1.2 Specification

matt buchanan — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 10:00:00 EST

Apple's shrunken version of DisplayPort will officially become part of the DisplayPort 1.2 spec, meaning there's a better-than-ever chance we'll actually see it in gadgets and computers from other people. Death to proprietary ports! [MacRumors]

Film Industry Wants to Set a Standard For 3D Viewing at Home

John Mahoney — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:45:30 EDT

The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, the folks behind such innovations as the color bar test pattern, want to codify a standard for watching 3D content in home theaters. They're casting the net wide to include all possible sources and displays, from over-the-air broadcast to DVDs and Blu-ray. Ars points out that Hollywood is both excited to sell you their movies again, this time in glorious 3D, and worried about potential lost revenues at 3D theater screenings of, say, George Lucas's 3D Star Wars remake. [Ars Technica]

Microsoft's HD Photo Is Official JPEG Successor, Redubbed JPEG XR

Matt Buchanan — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 21:20:04 EDT

Microsoft's HD Photo standard is now officially tapped to become JPEG's successor by the Joint Photographic Experts Group, but it'll be known as JPEG XR.

XR stands for extended range, given the wider color palette and finer gradations it can show. Other benefits include in-camera imaging processing support and, supposedly, better compression. Besides losing its Windows-y name (in a former life, it was Windows Media Photo) it's dropping proprietary control by Microsoft to become as neutral as JPEG is now. Though support's already built-in to Windows Vista, it'll take a year to get standardized, at which point large-scale adoption will probably start picking up steam. [Cnet via Electronista]

The Bluetooth SIG group just approved Bluetooth...

Jason Chen — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 13:54:33 EDT

The Bluetooth SIG group just approved Bluetooth Core Spec Version 2.1+EDR, which brings easier pairing and enhanced power optimization. [Bluetooth]

Microsoft's HD Photo standard, which compresses...

Brian Lam — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 13:10:58 EDT

Microsoft's HD Photo standard, which compresses more easily than JPEG2000, could be the next generation JPEG. [Ars]

Korean Cellphones Are Smarter, Part MMVI

tgrumet — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 09:21:34 EST

South Korea's three main mobile communications service providers—SK Telecom, KTF and LG Telecom—have agreed to make life easier for their customers. Instead of always having different standards for their respective mobile phones' sync, charge ports, data cables and earphones, it's been decided to go with just one standard. Most cellphone manufacturers have different ports to help boost accessory sales, but the Koreans, in their infinite wisdom, have come to understand that making life easier for the customer may actually boost sales, as well as subscriptions for services. They also believe this standardization could help with synchronizing the cellular phone input/output port and external devices, which would help them with other value-added services in the future.

Korean Carriers Demand Standard Connector [Phonescoop]
South Korea to Standardize Cellular Phone Accessories [Teardown]