Samsung and LG TVs Pass Compliance Testing For DiiVA Connectivity

The DiiVA (Digital Interactive Interface for Video & Audio) Consortium said Thursday that four Samsung TV models in the UAXXD5500 series have passed compliance testing at the DiiVA test center in Guangzhou, China. “As the first non-Chinese TV manufacturer to join DiiVA as a promoter, Samsung is committed to playing an integral role in the new era for smart TVs and will continue to raise the bar for interactive TV experiences,” said Hong Sung Pyo, vice president of Samsung Electronics, Tianjin R&D Center.

DiiVA was designed as a CE networking interface to build on the limitations of HDMI and Ethernet and to be an all-in-one connectivity solution combining uncompressed video, audio, data, content protection, control and low amounts of power in a single four-conductor wire such as Cat 5 and 6. Samsung hasn’t responded to our questions about future product plans and strategies for DiiVA and where the connectivity solution fits with its plans for HDBaseT, also a single-cable solution for uncompressed AV, data, power and control.

Earlier this month, an LG TV became the first to be DiiVA-certified, the consortium said, but LG has not responded to our requests for comments and product plans. LG has committed publicly to providing DiiVA across a broad range of product categories. In a CES press release, it said: “Our customers demand a new user experience that puts an array of entertainment content from multiple sources at their fingertips and turns their growing collections of connected devices” into home entertainment networks. Both Samsung and LG are founding members of the HDBaseT Alliance, a connectivity solution with similar goals.

DiiVA’s goal is to be “a standard feature” in every consumer electronics device including TVs, according to Steve Yum, president, DiiVA Licensing. The Samsung and LG testing announcements indicate that “manufacturers are taking DiiVA seriously,” Yum told Consumer Electronics Daily. At CES, the China Video Industry Association announced it had adopted DiiVA as a “requisite interface for smart terminals,” and its China Smart TV Working Group had selected DiiVA as a key technology for smart TVs “to be broadly introduced by member companies in 2011 and beyond."

In addition to streamlining connections into a single cable, DiiVA enables devices to discover each other on a peer-to-peer network and support features another devices might not have, Yum told us. “The TV can discover there are apps on a Blu-ray player and invoke that app as if it were a local resource,” Yum said. The TV can discover codecs on a set-top box that it does not have the capability to play, he said. Instead of telling the user “format not supported,” the TV can automatically reroute that file to the set-top box for playback, he said. Once devices are connected using DiiVA, standard Android and iPhone apps can be built to control the CE stack since video inputs, Ethernet and USB are all coordinated through a single standard, he said.

DiiVA will be marketed as “the must-have technology glue” in a home entertainment networking experience, Yum said. “We need to carve out a space in which DiiVA represents high-quality home entertainment networking,” he said, and that space falls between HDMI, a local point-to-point interface, and Ethernet (or Wi-Fi), a data networking interface. Regarding the premium DiiVA will command at retail, Yum said it depends on the manufacturer and speed of component integration. He cited HDMI, which originally carried a premium but eventually was integrated into video processors, which helped reduce costs. “We expect DiiVA to follow a similar path,” he said. Yum added that software applications running on top of DiiVA will enable “innovative TV manufacturers to differentiate their products by offering new user experiences and services” that can command a premium “while keeping cost of implementation affordable."

Regarding positioning versus HDBaseT, Yum told us, “From what we've seen, HDBaseT seems to be targeting the digital signage market and high-end custom AV installation market.” He noted that the first product to be certified by HDBaseT is a $699 Gefen extender. “It’s difficult to see how this technology can scale down to be integrated into TVs,” he said, while noting that LG, “one of their main promoters,” is integrating DiiVA into one of its TVs. The HDBaseT group, meanwhile, maintains that it will have HDBaseT-enabled TVs in the market in 2012 (CED June 7 p1). HDBaseT claims to support power up to 100 watts, compared with a power cap of 24 watts for DiiVA. HDBaseT promotes an operating range of 100 meters (328 feet) over Cat 5 while DiiVA “expects compliance for 25-meter point-to-point connections,” Yum said. Repeaters powered by the DiiVA bus can extend the cable distance up to 100 meters, he said.