digital TV campaign at Cable Satellite sho User July 1998 News.pdf · software-based approach too. Acorn is using thenew StrongARM SA-1500/1501 chip set which includes an AMP (attached

Acorn unveil acTiVe

digital TV campaign atCable & Satellite showAcorn have returned to the digital set-topbox (STB) fray with a vengeance. The disap­pointment of Acorn's failed first foray intothe STB world with Online Media has beenforgotten. That pioneering On line Mediawork hasn't gone to waste either - videoserver-based services form part of Acorn'snew acTiVe offering. At the recent Cableand Satellite industry show at Earls Court inLondon, Acorn exhibited a comprehensivearray of products which they hope will beadopted by famous names in the TVindustry.

These include STBs for both satellite and

terrestrial broadcast digital TV serviceswhich are already available in France andSwitzerland and will be coming to the UKlater this year. Digital TV will eventuallyreplace conventional analogue terrestrial,cable and satellite broadcasting entirely.

Clearly, this is going to be a huge market.Acorn believe they have the necessarycomputing know-how to produce leadingdigital STBs and digital video networkingsolutions. This is know-how which most of

the leading satellite and cable TVSTB manufacturers currently lack.

6 I Acorn User July 1998http://www .idg. co. uk/acarnuser /

Developments from Acorn include digitalSTBs with both hardware or software-based

MPEG2 digital video decoding. The latter,shown as an early prototype technicaldemonstrator, attracted the most attention.

While MPEGl decoding, which is compa­rable to the quality of a typical VHS videotape player, is fairly straightforward in soft­ware form, MPEG2 is a more challengingstandard. MPEG2 is much higher in bothaudio and visual resolution and clarity andother technical considerations of the stan­dard add to the considerable task of

decoding an MPEG2 data stream in a stablefashion.

At the heart of Acorn's software MPEG2

development is, inevitably, a StrongARMprocessor - a 300MHz example, no less. Theshow demonstration was performed by avery early-looking prototype motherboardand a short MPEG2 video clip was storedpermanently in on-board RAM instead ofbeing received from a more conventionalsource like a DVD player or other videoserver. The demo looked good even thoughsome obvious enhancements, like non­interlacing, had yet to be added.

Acorn are banking onsoftware MPEG2 beingcheaper and more flexiblethan its hardware-based

counterparts. The idea isthat only one hardwaredesign will be required byan STB vendor, withregional compatibilityaccomplished largelythrough programming. Forexample, MPEG2 inEurope is different toMPEG2 in the US - theyhave different audio stan­dards.

A degree of future­proofing is inherent in asoftware-based approachtoo. Acorn is using the newStrongARM SA-1500/1501chip set which includes anAMP (attached mediaprocessor) to optimiseoperations like MPEGdecoding.

Ironically, Acorn's gambleon software MPEG2 isat odds with VLSI

Technology, one of Acorn's

co-shareholders in ARM Ltd. Indeed, youcould say Acorn are pursuing a line of devel­opment which challenges ARM's ownproduct strategy. Although StrongARM is alicensed version of the ARM architecture,Digital Semiconductor implemented it in ahighly optimised fashion which enabled itto be clocked at very high speeds.

ARM's own versions are yet to match thespeeds that StrongARM has reached, butVLSI Technology, which are using 'ordi­nary' ARM processors in their own STBhardware designs, says they are happy touse the slower option for now and areconfident that later ARM generations ­ARM9 and ARMlO - will eventually catchup and overhaul StrongARM. Meantime,VLSI suggest that using even StrongARM forMPEG2 in software is inadvisable.

They use ARM to run the STB operatingsystem and so-called middleware, the soft­ware which will serve as the user interfaceand host for applications like the elec­tronic program guide. None of theseapplications is remotely as processor­hungry as decoding MPEG2. Acorn tell usthat not only is StrongARM perfectly capa­ble of handling both the middlewareapplications and MPEG2 decoding, butthey will eventually be able to decode twoMPEG streams in real time, enablingpicture in picture - one channel displayedon the whole screen plus a second inside asmaller window.

Once again, Acorn have the technologyand the imagination to do things differ­ently with definite benefits. Acorn are lateto the broadcast digital TV market, but theystill have a lead in key areas like softwareMPEG2 and other aspects of STB featuredesigns. Online Media may be dead but,from its ashes, acTiVe could rise to consid­erable success. And don't forget, if ChrisCox can make a case for it, any useful bitsof technology developed for the acTiVecould easily be made available to us.

Fuzzy spreadsheets

Acorn losses stemmedbut the business is stillshrinking

ExpLAN have previewed a new kind ofspreadsheet package which is designed todeal with 'soft' or 'fuzzy' information. Thenew package is called FuzzySheet. Unlikeexisting spreadsheets, the cells containgraphic items, adjusters or pictures.

Standard statistical information is

provided within FuzzySheet, though if youare using more advanced calculations youcan export these to a more conventionalanalysis application. FuzzySheet is particu­larly suited to data-collection of indistinctinformation. It deals with questions like:

Acorn Group turnoverby destination199.7 ~090

.""'.)'" """""".',"."~' ~-

1!l96 £900

UK

14,901 22.758

i Eu-ro~e

-.. "972u~'."'.=' .,.,...,

2,078Australasia

8253,048

usA ..

----""

1.609'lit Mo 7..:2.9ROT17

Other

1,304 533

Acorn are still not in profit, but the direc­tors seem happy that the company'stransformation from manufacturer and

supplier to the education and other retail

"How much do you agree with currentGovernment policy on IT?," - where theanswer is supplied by moving a slider to aposition between "Strongly disagree" and"Strongly agree."

Another example ExpLAN gives is: "howcloudy is it today?," where an adjuster willalter a picture in the cell which showsclouds covering the sun to a chosen degree.

FuzzySheet will be available in severaldifferent formats later this year. ExpLANare aiming FuzzySheet at a couple ofmarkets; their more familiar market in

markets to high-tech consultancy is onthe right track and that profitability is onthe horizon .

Turnover for the year ending 31December 1997 dropped by £4.8 millionto £25.2 million, a reduction of 16 percent. Despite the reduced· turnover, the1996 operating loss of £4.8 million wasreduced to £3.7 million.

During 1997 Acorn closed theirAustralian subsidiary, at a cost of over£300,000, though Acorn computersremain on sale there via a local distribu­

tor. Xemplar cost Acorn £697,000 in 1996,but 1997 saw an income of £80,000 from

education and also the professional marketslike market research and psychologicalanalysis. FuzzySheet runs within the NestedWimp, as supplied with the new AcornBrowser. ExpLAN are confident it will runon both the new Phoebe 2100 and the

forthcoming Peanut portable. The latterwill be key to FuzzySheet users who arelikely to require a mobile computer fortheir data collection activities.

ExpLAN's Paul Richardson can becontacted via e-mail at [email protected]

the subsidiary. Income from ARM Ltdincreased from £ 1. 5 7 million to £2

million. 1998 figures will show an incomeof over £ 15 million as a result of therecent stock market flotation of ARM.

As the accompanying table shows, theUK remains the biggest source of incomefor Acorn, largely because of its historicaleducation market. However, that fellsubstantially in 1997 and income fromcontracts in the US have risen just assubstantially. Meanwhile, Acorn'sresearch and development expenditurerose to £2.86 million, an increase ofalmost 150 per cent.

This underscores Acorn's transition to a

research-led consultancy as well as thecost of developing the new Phoebe 2100workstation and network computer prod­ucts like CoNCorde. Are Acorn going to beprofitable in 1998? Ignoring the windfallfrom ARM Ltd - probably not. Acorn arestill trying to establish themselves in newmarkets and income from Phoebe won't

arrive until half way through the secondhalf of the year. Maybe 1999 will be theyear that Acorn gets back into the black.

July 1998 Acorn User 17http://www .idg .co. u k/acornuser/