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San Jose, Calif -The copy-protection stalemate that has threatened to thwart the Christmas-season rollout of DVD digital-video-disk equipment may be nearing an end, industry sources said last week. The sources said the consumer-electronics, computer and motionpicture industries plan to adopt the encryption system proposed by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. for DVD hardware and software.
However, film-studio executives and a computer-industry spokeswoman cautioned last week that the devil will be in the details. Left open for further discussion are such critical issues as a copy-control mechanism for digital-to-analog copying and how to limit subsequent copies of content once signals have been decrypted.
Engineering executives from the three industries gathered here last week for a two-day DVD Technical Working Group (TWG) meeting at which Matsushita provided a detailed briefing on its proposed encryption system. The TWG is scheduled to reconvene on Sept. 18-19 in Burbank, Calif.
Barriers removed
Bob Lambert, senior vice president for new technology at The Walt Disney Co., said last week that the various inter-industry meetings held in the past six months have made "huge progress" by "removing major barriers" to understanding the participating industries' disparate requirements for copy protection.
But even as he acknowledged that the issue may be resolved as soon as this month, Lambert noted that "the final 2 percent of an agreement" is always the toughest to negotiate.
Fiona Branton, director of government relations for the Information Technology Industry (IT Council, noted that the computer industry agrees in general that "the concept of the proposed encryption system...