CHINA SEEKING OWN DIGITAL AUDIO STANDARD
To strengthen its intellectual property position worldwide and avoid having to pay royalties to foreign patent holders, China should hasten development of its own digital audio technology standard, analysts with domestic information technology research group said Mon., as reported by China Daily. “The establishment of a Chinese-owned standard has become something of vital importance to the development of the national industry,” said Wang Peng, vp of China Centre for Information Industry Development Consulting (CCID).
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Researcher group’s report on development of AV industry in China predicted country might have to pay $1-$1.5 billion in royalties each year over next 5-10 years due to lack of core technologies. As example, report cited DVD players. China Audio Industry Assn. (CAIA) said foreign patent owners claimed more than $20 in royalties were due for each Chinese-made DVD player exported. Last year, China exported more than 10 million players.
CCID report said home-grown digital audio technology was vital to emerging categories such as digital TV, high-density storage products such as DVDs, broadband multimedia applications and mobile multimedia communications. CCID forecast that Chinese audio industry would reach at least $48 billion in 2005, sales of mobile multimedia applications $32.6 billion and digital TV market $18 billion by that time. “If we do not have our own standard on digital TV we may have to suffer from intellectual property royalties for dozens of years and it will be a deadly blow to our audio industry,” said Liu Junguo, senior CCID analyst.
Source with China Audio & Visual Standardization Working Group (AVS) responsible for standards said AVS had solicited 5 proposals on audio standards, including 2 Dolby and Philips, China Daily reported. Source told paper that AVS still was waiting for more proposals, and evaluation would start at end of Oct. “We should not set the standard solely for the sake of reducing costs. We should also learn foreign manufacturers’ advanced technologies,” source said. He suggested China should have exchanges with foreign companies and try to lift Chinese standards to international level.