"...The DVD Forum is putting the finishing touches on specs that will let DVD products output digital signals. Guidelines for a 1394 interface implementation that directly links DVD players to output appliances such as digital TV sets and digital audio amplifiers are close to being finalized, a forum official said.

DVD players handle digital signals, but their output is now restricted to analog only. "The principal mission is to create a 1394 recommendation for playback-only DVDs," said Hideki Mimura, group manager at Toshiba Corp.'s data-storage development center, and chairman of a DVD Forum DVD-Video working group that is crafting the 1394 interface guideline, in tandem with a DVD-Audio working group.

"After we finish this step for playback-only DVD, the next step is discussions for recordable DVD," Mimura said. The forum has proposed DVD-specific commands and expansions for addition to the IEEE-1394 standard. Some of these additional specs have already been folded into the standard, and some are under voting at the 1394TA group, which oversees the overall 1394 standard..."