China Plans Rival Format To MPEG Audio-Video Standard
Chinese government is supporting an effort to develop a homegrown standard for compressing digital audio and video, in its latest attempt to assert its technological independence from the rest of the world.
The committee developing China's standard met in Beijing Wednesday, and state-run media quoted industry officials as saying the aim is to enable domestic companies to avoid using the dominant MPEG standards, which require royalty payments.
Sounds and images have to be encoded in particular ways in order to be converted into a digital format that can be easily reproduced and transmitted - like DVDs or the popular MP3 format for computer files. The Moving Picture Experts Group, or MPEG , is the author of the most widely-used methods for doing this.
Makers of digital electronic devices, like DVD players or mobile phones capable of playing music and video, have to license the MPEG technologies to take advantage of those capabilities.
The competing Chinese standard, known as AVS, will be proposed as a national standard in 2004, the China Daily newspaper reported, citing Huang Tiejun, secretary-general of the Audio Video Coding Standard Workgroup.
Chinese manufacturers licensing that technology would pay fees in the order of one yuan ($1=CNY8.28) per device, much lower than those for MPEG , the report said. If it becomes a national standard, products of foreign companies sold in China could also have to use AVS.
Reflecting the importance of the Chinese market, the local research arms of multinationals like International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), Royal Philips Electronics (PHG) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) have signed up as members of the standard's working group.
中国研发本国数字音视频压缩标准
中国政府最近大力扶持本国数字音视频压缩标准研发，以摆脱对国外科技的依赖。
负责该项研发的工作组周三在北京举行了会议。官方媒体援引行业官员的话说，研发的目的在于使国内公司可以不再使用需要支付专利费的MPEG标准。声音和图像必须通过特殊的编码方法转换成数码格式，以便使用DVD或目前流行的电脑文件MP3格式等方式复制和传送。目前广泛使用的是MPEG标准。
生产DVD机或具备音乐和影像播放功能的移动电话等数码电器的公司必须缴纳专利费，才能使用MPEG技术。
《中国日报》报导援引数字音视频编解码标准工作组(Audio Video Coding Standard Workgroup)秘书长黄铁军的话说，新的AVS标准有望在2004年成为中国国家标准。
报导说，采用此项标准的生产厂商将为每件产品支付人民币1元（1美元=人民币8.28元），远远低于MPEG标准的专利费。如果AVS成为国家标准，在中国销售的外国公司产品也必须使用该标准。
国际商业机器公司(IBM)，皇家飞利浦电子股份有限公司(Koninklijke Philips Electronics, PHG)及微软(Microsoft Corp., MSFT)等跨国企业在中国当地的研究机构都加入了该工作组，显示出他们对中国市场的重视。
