This paper provides an overview of available multimedia software resources for automotive applications that include audio, video, speech, and digital rights management (DRM). When possible, it also supplies heuristics for making design and deployment decisions based on project maturity and licensing information, for example.

Intelligent in-vehicle systems increasingly offer end users rich multimedia experiences as part of their core functionality.  To compete in a dynamic marketplace, automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and integrators must provide digital audio and video, animated 2D and 3D maps and street views, and speech-based interfaces in their next-generation in-vehicle systems.

Linux, open source software (OSS), and proprietary/commercial software hosted on Linux offer automotive OEMs and suppliers a wide range of multimedia technologies, toolkits, media players, and plug-ins. This paper provides an overview of available multimedia software resources for automotive applications that include audio, video, speech, and digital rights management (DRM). When possible, it also supplies heuristics for making design and deployment decisions based on project maturity and licensing information, for example.

Core Automotive Multimedia Requirements

To support real-world automotive applications, Linux-hosted multimedia technology for automotive applications needs to deliver certain key capabilities:

•                     Support for popular, industry-standard media formats and file types

•                     Ready-to-use audio/video codecs and players

•                     Screen resolutions from VGA (video graphics array)(640x480) upward through high definition (HD) resolutions

•                     Performance and load characteristics matched to available automotive embedded hardware

•                     CPU support for automotive processor architectures: ARM, Hitachi SH, and Intel

•                     Speech output and recognition

Challenges to Meeting Multimedia Requirements  with Open Source Software

Until recently, many OEMs found it extremely difficult to integrate a useful and comprehensive set of multimedia components for use in devices based on embedded Linux. Despite broad embedded and desktop deployment and a worldwide community of Linux developers and end users, efforts to accommodate the gamut of media types, codecs, formats, DRM regimes, intellectual property restrictions, and licenses stymied the deployment of full-featured Linux-based media devices. These challenges include the following:

•              highly proprietary, non-standard nature of many audio and video codecs

•              Variation inmaturity of OSS projects implementing multimedia components

•              Conformance to the particulars of copyright legislation (in particular the Digital MIllenium Copyright Act, or DCMA) and patent law in choosing and integrating OSS components for multimedia

This paper, in surveying available multimedia technologies for embedded Linux, refers to relevant information regarding maturity, licensing, and intellectual property status of the software in question.

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