PC Card Technology Adopted for Digital Video Standard

PCMCIA actively seeks a variety of industries to adopt PC Card technology.

SUNNYVALE, Calif., June 19, 1995--The PC Card technology, already widely
accepted in the mobile computing industry, recently took an exciting step
towards acceptance in other industries when the European Project Digital
Video Broadcasting (DVB) agreed to use the technology as the physical
interface for its conditional access standard.

This important digital transmission standard allows for a standard method
of building the descramblers that provide conditional access and security
functions to televisions and other video devices. The PC Card technology
was chosen mainly because of its small size and versatility.

The inclusion of PC Card technology in the DVB specification represents the
beginning of an exciting evolution as PC Card technology is integrated
into a wide variety of industries and vertical markets. The PC Card
technology has been already been adopted by many vertical markets such as
the military, the automotive and health care industries and
manufacturing.

"The adoption of the PC Card technology by the DVB highlights the
opportunities for further expansion of PC Cards into other industries,"
said Bill Lempesis, executive director of PCMCIA, "we expect many other
industries to follow suit by integrating PC Card technology into their
applications."

Along these lines, the smart card industry has shown interest in
cooperating with PCMCIA in an effort to enable smart cards and PC Cards to
work in tandem. And PCMCIA is currently considering a proposal to add the
Zoom Video (ZV) bus architecture to the PC Card interface. This exciting
development would allow users to add full-motion video capabilities such
as teleconferencing to their notebook computers.

About PCMCIA and the PC Card technology

PCMCIA is a non-profit trade association and standards body made up of over
500 member companies. PCMCIA promotes the PC Card technology by defining
technical specifications and sponsoring comprehensive marketing programs.
PC Cards are credit card size peripheral devices that add memory, mass
storage and I/O capabilities to computers. PCMCIA is the worldwide
standards body for the PC Card technology.

About DVB and its Conditional Access Standard

The goal of the "Conditional Access (CA) and Other Applications in Digital
Video Broadcast Decoders" specification is to provide a common interface
for manufacturers to use in designing such devices. If the interface is
used in decoders, it will mean that it will be possible to deliver the
decoder and conditional access separately, and that a number of different
CA systems may be used with the same decoder. This will make it possible
to design DVB decoders which are, for example, built into bigscreen TVs or
personal computers, as well as making it possible to design set-top boxes
which include future types of CA systems without the need to replace the
whole system. The interface is designed so that it can be used to attach
other functions such as electronic program guides without the host decoder
having information about the details of the application.

NOTE: PCMCIA is moving. Their new address listed below will be effective as
of July 1st, 1995!

PCMCIA
2635 North First St, Ste 209
San Jose, CA 95131
408-433-2273,  fax 408-433-9558,  BBS 408-433-2270
Internet: office@pcmcia.org

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