Matsushitaís DVD-Audio Launch Delayed Due To Encryption Issues
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. has announced that it will postpone its launch of DVD-Audio players, which had been previously re-scheduled for December in Japan, by approximately six months. The company, which has taken the lead in market introduction of DVD-Audio hardware, said the delay was attributable to the music industryís insistence on tougher encryption technology. Instead of CSS-2, which had been developed by the 4C Entity (Matsushita, IBM, Intel, and Toshiba) and supported last March by the five major record labels (Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, BMG, and EMI) as the format1s encryption solution, Matsushita will propose a ""new, more robust encryption system"" through the 4C Entity. Matsushitaís decision to postpone its DVD-Audio hardware launch ""followed discussions with the major music companies and Hollywood studios,"" the company said in a statement. ""The music industry has expressed a need for an even more robust encryption system for DVD-Audio. With such an enhanced system, we expect the music industry will be more willing to prepare DVD-Audio software for the market."" Matsushitaís reference to speaking with the Hollywood studios would appear to allude to the recent cracking of DVD-Video1s CSS (the Content Scrambling System, of which Matsushita was the primary developer) by a 14-year-old Norwegian hacker and his European colleagues - an event that has Hollywood and the music industry on guard. As a result, CSS-2ís strength is now questioned and feared to be imminently hacked, and copyright owners are looking to other more stringent copy protection technology safeguards before they will agree to completely support DVD-Audio. Panasonic Consumer Electronics Co. announced that it too will postpone its launch of DVD-Audio player models based on its parent companyís announcement. The company had announced this summer that it would introduce in October two combination DVD-Audio/DVD-Video players under the Panasonic and Technics brand names.