New Consortium to Develop Digital Media “Ecosystem”

LOS ANGELES, September 12:
A consortium of Hollywood studios, retailers and consumer electronics and IT
companies have joined forces to define an industry framework that will allow
consumers to play digital media content across a variety of platforms and devices.

The formation of the
Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) was announced today, led by
Comcast, Fox Entertainment Group, Lionsgate, Microsoft, NBC Universal,
Paramount Pictures, Philips, Sony, Toshiba, VeriSign, Warner Bros.
Entertainment, Alcatel-Lucent, Best Buy, Cisco, HP and Intel. The consortium’s
goal is to address consumer confusion around the purchase, download and
consumption of digital content. DECE is working towards an industry standard,
with a recognizable brand and logo for compliant products and services that
will assure consumers that content they download will play on their devices.
The licensable specification will outline the hardware and software
requirements for companies rolling out digital media. The specification will
also define how consumers can access the content on various devices, or even
remotely.

"This is great news
for consumers hungry for access to a wider array of digital content they can
enjoy on any device they own,” said Mitch Singer, the president of DECE. “We
formed this consortium to give consumers that kind of power and choice. To open
up the market for digital distribution, we are developing a specification that
connects a wide variety of services and devices. DECE is taking the lessons
learned from the successful ‘buy once, play anywhere’ experience that we enjoy
with CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray today, and using a similar approach in developing
the next-generation digital media experience."

—By Mansha Daswani