From: axman@acadia.Kodak.COM (Mike Axman)
Subject: Re: Time to boycott Photo CD
Organization: Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester, NY
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 92 19:10:08 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.173045.4694@m.cs.uiuc.edu>, hasker@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Rob Hasker) writes:
>jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond) writes:
>
>>ajayshah@almaak.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) writes:
>>
>>>Kodak wants to tie up the file formats under lock and key.  You can't
>>>write a program to open their files.  You can't even write a program
>>>which generates their files.  Don't expect to ever see interfaces
>>>between Photo CD and pbm or TeX.  If you write a neat program which
>>>does XXX to a file in Kodak format, you can't give that program to
>>>anyone else.
>>
>>>The only people who can read/write the Photo CD files are commercial
>>>vendors who pay Kodak royalties.
>>
>>As an enthusiastic photographer and user who is waiting on this product 
>>with bated breath, I say "who cares?"
>
>Look at what happened with Nintendo.  Nintendo successfully sued people
>who decoded the cartridge interface so they could make and sell their own
>Nintendo-compatible games.  The result is that the price of Nintendo
>games is _much_ higher than it would be if there was legal competition.
>Do you really want to go to Kodak for _every_ image manipulation program?
>

There are already many developers who've been licensed to develop applications
for Photo CD, and Kodak will probably write VERY LITTLE of the image 
manipulation software that will ultimately be available.  I would even go so 
far as to guess that Kodak couldn't care less about computer jocks and hobbiests
who want to hack through the format without getting a license.  But if they 
try to make a product which uses it to make money, they must pay.  
Photo CD is not tiff, or pbm, or emacs.  
Why don't we just tell everyone the details of our emulsion designs while 
we're at it.  Patents and licenses are a reality of the current corporate
climate.

Kodak is not in the business of altruism; we are not a university.  
A lot of time, effort, and proprietary sweat was put into the 
compression/file-format of the hi-res data to achieve good image quality 
and decent data reduction.  I know, I worked on it and I sweat alot :-) 
Just like Dolby, we want to protect and "milk" that effort for all we can.

There are many reasons for this, including the need to maintain some kind of 
control over the image quality issues.  If "joe blow" decides to hack together 
a Photo CD transfer service, and he's doesn't do the compression correctly, 
or decides not to write the hi-res data (it's much faster), his cost savings
will ultimately hurt Kodak.  Licensing is one way to keep tabs on quality.

Sounds like what a lot of you want is just a system which scans and writes 
raw data (uncompressed with no resolution hierarchy) to a write-once media.
Or perhaps you want JPEG compression.  Maybe somebody will offer this option.
(probably not Fuji since they're on our side in this argument)
Keep in mind, however, that a JPEG'd image at full resolution would have to 
go though AN ENORMOUS amount of processing to display to TV; there goes your
affordable player strategy.  Also, a JPEG'd image digitally zoomed a bit, 
shows nasty DCT blocking artifacts; there goes the "digital negative"
philosophy.

There are a lot of CD audio enthusiasts who feel the same way about Sony and 
Philips, but I don't think the industry has suffered too much as a result.

just my 2 bits,
mike
-- 
Mike Axman  
CD-Imaging Advanced Development
Eastman Kodak Company
axman@acadia.kodak.com



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