An increasing number of consumer electronics devices depend use software for control and configuration. The lack of a common standard for interfacing A/V-related hardware to this software has meant consumer electronics manufacturers, independent software vendors and semiconductor manufacturers have to write new software for each different hardware architecture. Last week a group of leading consumer electronics and semiconductor companies joined to announce the formation of the Universal Home Application Programmer Interface (UHAPI) Forum. The UHAPI Forum said the group will standardize hardware-independent applications programming interfaces (APIs) for analog and digital televisions, set-top boxes, DVD players and recorders, personal video recorders, and other consumer multimedia devices.
The UHAPI Forum is working on the UHAPI 1.0 specification for analog and digital television, which will allow for the creation of middleware and application software for use with TV chips. The 1.1 specification will expand support to DVD playback, DVD recording and PVR functionality.
For more information on the UHAPI and its activities, visit www.uhapi.org.
