No independent company "owns" DVD. The official specification was formulated by a consortium of ten companies: Hitachi, JVC, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Philips, Pioneer, Sony, Thomson, time warner Inc. and Toshiba. Representatives from many other companies also contributed to many working groups. 1In May 1997, DVD Alliance was replaced by DVD Forum, which was open to all companies and had more than 220 members by February 2000. Time warner Inc. Company first registered the trademark of DVD, and then gave it to the DVD format/logo licensing company. See 6.2 for Robert's DVD information page. There are many links to the websites of DVD companies.
Sign a confidentiality agreement and pay $5,000 to get the official DVD specifications. The paid fee includes one specification, and the others are 500 dollars each. To produce DVD and use DVD logo, another format and trademark license certificate are needed, each format is 65,438+00,000 USD. (For example, manufacturers of DVD-Video players must pay a license fee of $20,000 for DVD-ROM and DVD-Video. ) Contact DVD Format/Logo Licensing Company (DVD FLLC), 5f Shibuya Shimizu Building, 2-3-1at Shibuya-Gate, Minato -Ku, Tokyo 105-00 12 at+8/kloc.
ECMA has developed the international DVD-ROM standard (which is the first and smallest part of the DVD specification). Before requesting technical support, you can write an email to css-info@lmicp.com. 1999 12 15, CSS certification can be managed by Songshi.
Macrovision licensed its analog anti-recording technology to hardware manufacturers. The initial cost is $30,000 and the annual fee is $65,438+$05,000. The above fees ensure the wide compatibility between the player and the TV set. Player manufacturers do not have to pay patent fees. Macrovision charges royalties to content publishers (about 3 to 6 cents per CD).
Dolby proves that its dolby digital decoder costs $0.26 per channel. For dolby digital patents, Philips, which represents CCETT and IRT, also charges $0.20 per channel (the maximum charge is $0.60 per player) and $0.003 per CD.
Of course, you also need MPEG-2 patent certification. You can go to MPEG LA (certification manager of MPEG). A DVD player or decoder costs about $4, with 4 points for each DVD. However, it is still controversial whether content publishers should pay the royalties of optical discs.
Nisim's patent on parental control requires 25 points for each player, but whether the patent is applicable to DVD and whether it is legal is still controversial.
For a DVD player with a price of $300, all the certification fees add up to more than $30, and each disc is about $0.20. The CD royalty is paid by the CD reproducer.