The CyberLink Vision of the Digital Home

The Digital Home represents a major shift in the way people will interact with digital content. While convergence between traditional computers and home electronic devices fulfils the hardware side of the equation, it is the ability to handle protected content that will have the greatest impact on how companies develop their products.

CyberLink's software provide the key links between content and hardware. TV, movies and music are three essential ingredients in the digital content mix; and it is the protection of this premium content that represents the killer app for companies entering the Digital Home. Companies will need to provide end-to-end solutions that protect digital content—not just during playback, but during all stages in its use: transmission, storage, and viewing.

CyberLink's role in the Digital Home ecosystem is as a total solution provider for the infrastructure necessary for secure content management. It is essential that this infrastructure also operates across both Windows and Linux platforms. To achieve this, CyberLink has leveraged several key strengths—in-depth experience in TV recording on the PC, world-leading video and audio playback technology, and quality disc burning combined with expertise in networking, premium content protection and OS compatibility. The following are also basic Digital Home issues that have to be addressed:

• UPnP compliance ensures the recognition of devices across a wired or wireless network
• Content protection schemes:CPRM, VCPS, and HDCP
• Dual platform support represents essential flexibility within the Digital Home. Devices need to communicate with each other dependent of their operating system. CyberLink has long established its credentials, in the worlds of Windows, Windows embedded and Linux

Video and Audio Formats

Support for major formats for the digital home is extensive, including MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC, DivX and WMV for video, JPEG, BMP and PNG for images, and MP3, WMA and MPEG 2/4 AAC for audio.

Disc Support

Formats supported now include DVD-RW, DVD+RW, double-layer discs of DVD+R and DVD-R, as well as DVD-VR, and DVD-RAM discs. High-Definition DVD (HD DVD) and Blu-Ray discs will offer even greater storage capacity. CyberLink has quickly implemented support for emerging formats, offering burning and playback of all DVD types, in addition to CD-R/RW, SVCD and VCD formatted discs.

Digital Rights Management (DRM)

DRM is at the center of concerns over digital piracy. The issues are complex, with content producers expecting multiple levels of security: at transmission and playback, during storage, and at the point of legitimate copying. There is no one standard for all aspects of content protection.

• DTCP-IP covers the protection of content during transmission
• CPRM and VCPS are forms of disc-based copy protection and relate to the burning and playback process
• HDCP protects content during the transmission of video signals from the PC to display devices

For more information on content protection, click here.