1394 Trade Association Developing IP over Isochronous 1394 Specification, Providing Quality of Service for IP Networks.

DALLAS -- The 1394 Trade Association today announced the formation of a new Task Group to develop a specification for the transport of IP packets over isochronous (real-time) 1394.

The group's efforts will build on the existing IP over 1394 specification in order to minimize development time with a year-end target. The new effort applies 1394's inherent real-time capabilities to provide the critical Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees within a wired IP-based network.

Chaired by Oxford Semiconductor, the task group is identifying changes required to fully support isochronous transport of IP. By the fourth quarter it will produce a technical bulletin that specifies the required changes.

The first stage of the work involves the task group identifying specific areas that require standardization. These include defining the extensions to the Multicast Channel Allocation Protocol (MCAP) to provide a mechanism for announcing the 1394 channel that contains Unicast IP data, a mechanism already exists within MCAP for announcing Multicast and Broadcast IP channels though it needs minor changes to indicate the bandwidth used by each channel. The group also is developing guidelines that indicate how devices should optimally manage 1394 bandwidth at the Isochronous Resource Manager (IRM). It also will identify content protection requirements for data forwarded beyond the local 1394 bus.

The completed specification will enable the transport of IP packets with guaranteed Quality of Service. Data will be delivered within a guaranteed time period, ensuring that the transport of IP-based video, for example, from a video source to sink will be free from breakups due to data 'starvation,' even on very busy home networks.

In order to optimize product interoperability, the 1394 TA task group will be working throughout the development of the specification to ensure the mechanisms used for 1394 transport are compatible with those used in other IP systems, such as the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) and Residential Ethernet.

"Transporting IP over Isochronous 1394 is an excellent mechanism for delivering video with guaranteed QoS over DLNA networks," said James Snider, executive director of the 1394 Trade Association.

The 1394 Trade Association is an international organization dedicated to the advancement and proliferation of the IEEE 1394/FireWire multimedia standard. For more information visit www.1394ta.org.