1394 Trade Association Releases New and Revised Specifications on Blu-ray, Set Top Box Functionality

The 1394 TA has issued a trio of new specifications focused on video compression, audio and music transmission, and set top box functionality.

The Trade Association’s USA Set Top Box Test Specification Revision 1.0 defines a set of tests to verify the functionality of the 1394 interface as described in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandate for a functional 1394 interface in the STB.   The standard defines a set of tests that when executed will verify a USA Set Top Box has correctly implemented all the required functionality. The 2008003 specification is available on the 1394 TA website.  

The revised BT.601 specification on the transport of uncompressed or compressed video addresses the upcoming analog ‘sunset’ directive that applies Jan. 1, 2011 to new Blu-ray products.  The ‘image constraint token’ eliminates the potential for pirated unencrypted video. With this revision, BT.601 has been updated with the token for use with Blu-ray players.

Data in the 4:2:2 format of ITU-R BT.601 includes compatible extensions to the format for the higher and lower resolutions of other commonly used video resolutions over 1394. The data formats for the encapsulation of video data are compatible with those specified by IEC 61883-1.

The specification provides a list of compression codes controlled by the 1394 Trade Association and a reference to one video compression codec, minimum, to assure interoperability and bounded implementation complexity. For more details, visit the 2006020 specification page.

A new version of the Audio Music Data Transmission Protocol (v 2.2) addresses multichannel audio formats for Blu-ray. It supports all popular surround configurations like 5.1 and 7.1, and is extensible to 32 channels of surround. The new version also addresses the analog sunset directive, and describes a protocol for the transmission of audio and music data over IEEE Std 1394-1995 or later, including the transport of IEC 60958 digital format, raw audio samples, and MIDI data.

The specification includes excerpts from IEC 61883-6, the improved version of the 1394 TA specification "Audio and Music Data Transmission Protocol V1".  Details are at the 2009013 specification page.

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