Ford Shows Multimedia Navigator with IDB-1394

17 October 2000
Ford Shows Multimedia Navigator with IDB-1394
    DETROIT, Oct. 17 Buyers of Ford Motor Company
vehicles could soon be able to "plug and play" their favorite electronic
devices into any car, minivan or sport utility.
    Ford Motor Company's Lincoln Navigator on display at Convergence 2000 in
Detroit this week provides a preview of how having a standardized multimedia
network interface for electronics opens a new door for automakers to deliver
up-to-date built-in audio and video content in any vehicle.
    The Lincoln Navigator, for example, features a Sony Playstation 2, a
device that will be showing up soon on U.S. store shelves.  The game
interfaces with two in-vehicle 1394 video displays.  In the past, portable
consumer electronic multimedia devices could not interface with vehicles
without major electronic modifications, slowing the time it took to bring such
features to market.
    The ability to interface consumer electronic devices along with the quick
installation is made possible because of a standard global interface that Ford
Motor Company and nearly a dozen of the world's automakers are developing
through the Automotive Multimedia Interface Collaboration (AMI-C), an industry
group working to establish a standard way to deliver multimedia content in new
vehicles.  The network on display in the Lincoln Navigator is known in the
industry as the IEEE 1394 serial bus, a high-speed network for transporting
digital audio/video.  The automotive supplement is dubbed IDB-1394 and is
being developed by the 1394 Joint Automotive Working Group.
    The Navigator features an interchangeable CD player, Camcorder and DVD to
demonstrate the advantages IDB 1394 brings to a vehicle in terms of consumer
plug & play electronics.  A "customer convenience port" in the Navigator
allows consumers to plug their favorite multimedia devices in the vehicle,
such as a laptop computer or palm held device, using the same cable in their
home, interchangeably.
    "Providing the 1394 Customer Convenience Port will allow people to plug-in
their latest portable electronic devices into the vehicle," said Frank
Desjarlais, co-chairman of the 1394 Automotive Working Group and Ford Motor
Company network systems engineer: "The fact that 1394 is an existing standard
and capable of supporting digital video makes it ideally suited for this
purpose."