NEW YORK-The Wireless Multimedia Forum, which recently celebrated its first birthday, is on schedule in building a framework for content that must be written just once for delivery to any device over any network.
Earlier this year, the WMF released Version 1.0 of its Recommended Technical Framework Document. This specifies technologies to be used consistently by all industry players for seamless, end-to-end delivery of streaming multimedia content across wireless and wireline networks. It defines the file format and streaming mechanism between multimedia distribution servers and wireless multimedia terminals.
The RTFD will work on 2.5-generation wireless networks, said Barry Aronson, a Beverly, Mass.-based consultant to Toshiba Corp., a charter member of the group. Toshiba is involved in compression and decompression technologies for voice, audio and video communications.
“The technology is not necessarily limited to 2.5G or even 3G. There also is considerable interest in Wireless Metro Area Networks,” he said.
These would be fixed wireless terminals that allow passers-by to view trailers of movies playing nearby or get a sneak peak inside a club or restaurant in the neighborhood.
The organization expects interoperability testing to begin during the second or third quarters of this year, and the first products based on the document to be available by late this year or early next, said Martin Wall, chief technology officer for Stardust.com, Los Gatos, Calif. Stardus.com, which describes its corporate mission as “making sense of new Internet stuff,” is managing member of the forum.
Work also has begun to develop Version 2.0 of Recommended Technical Framework Document.
“This will add more streaming media and downloadable media types. Our goal also is to go back in Version 2.0 to look at new Quality of Service standards and initiatives,” Wall said.
The Wireless Multimedia Forum, which now has about 60 corporate members, came into being to develop a consensus about which existing standards would serve as the best of breed when assembled into a framework for interoperability of content delivery.
“It’s a baseline definition of minimum requirements for interoperability. It is then up to companies to differentiate themselves on the quality of delivery,” said Dror Gill, chief technology officer of Emblaze Research, Netanya, Israel.
Emblaze Research is involved in development of multimedia chips for delivery of streaming media to cellular phones. Gill is co-chairman of the Forum’s Technical Working Group, which focuses on development of the technical framework documents.
“We enable handhelds to use streaming multimedia, but we want interoperability with other providers,” said Iraj Sodagar, executive member of the technical staff at San Diego-based PacketVideo and co-chairman of the WMF’s Technical Working Group.
The WMF also has an Applications Requirements Working Group, whose role is to establish the business justification for varied multimedia services, Wall said.
“There is support for standards-related solutions and a need to attract the right mix of companies, especially in wireless, because it is very important to have it work worldwide,” said Clifford L. Sayre III, a systems engineer at Lucent Technologies Inc., Holmdel, N.J.
“We have good expertise in networking and wireless technologies, but we’re not as strong in wireless multimedia.”
Lucent is a WMF charter member. Sayre said his work for the equipment maker involves adding multimedia capabilities to wireless gateways.
“One of the most exciting aspects of the new mobile phones is their color displays and excellent resolution, but they are text-only. Wireless multimedia would let carriers like (NTT) DoCoMo bring audio and video to complement voice and text,” Sayre said.
Even the most enthusiastic proponents of streaming multimedia do not, at this point, believe that mobile wireless delivery of full-length, full-motion video will be a practical reality in the foreseeable future. The average person is unlikely to spend the two minutes necessary to download a 30-second video clip, said Wall of Stardust.com
“I don’t see people watching two-hour movies, but they probably would like push-type content that follows them wherever they go, like breaking news or highlights of a sports event,” said Gill of Emblaze Research.
