Standards may make digital cameras click

The lack of standards is said to be among the great-est hurdles to widespread consumer adoption of digital photography. Yet, while standards are critical, the real question is what to standardize.

Proponents of the "Standard Camera OS" point to the PC market's growth after DOS or Windows became the de-facto standard for desktop computers. They claim that the digital-camera market will follow a similar growth track once a standard OS or OE (operating environment) has been established. It may sound appealing, but this approach has some drawbacks.

First, digital still cameras are compute-intensive, mobile devices that require specialized processing solutions.

They aren't well served by a general-purpose OS. Any generic OS will have to appeal to the lowest common denominator of hardware platforms, and, like Windows, ultimately will carry significant legacy baggage.

The key to a successful commercial digital-camera program is time-to-market. A close second is being the first out with a new feature set.

If designers are forced to wait for the "standard OS" to be updated to support new features, this critical time advantage will be lost.

For digital-camera success, we should look at the 35-mm film business. If we use film as the model, it's the interchange standard that creates the environment for success. The film size and process are standardized. Film and camera vendors and photofinishers can differentiate their products and services.

Both the industry and the consumer win. Consumers can buy single-use cameras for less than $10. Professionals can spend thousands on equipment. Minilabs can spend thousands of dollars for equipment while wholesale photofinishers can invest millions. This creates a huge business opportunity for all involved in the business.

A consumer can buy a roll of film while on vacation in Europe, take pictures using a camera made in China, have the film processed in California and share images with a friend in Australia by sending a print.

They can do all without having to worry about software drivers, ac adapters, exchange rates, language barriers, cables, computer platforms, BinHex vs. Base64 encoding, JPEG vs. FlashPix, etc.

For digital photography to take off, it must be as easy to use as a 35-mm point-and-shoot camera, produce output quality as good as film and be affordable.

While big strides have been made in price and quality, it's not easy to get images from one camera to another, much less to a printer or PC. The success of the Sony Digital Mavica is a testament to the demand for interchange standards, albeit one with severe capacity limitations, namely a 1.4-Mbyte floppy disk. The two key standards are the transfer medium and file formats.

For the transfer medium, something like IrDA makes the most sense. Standards like IR Tran-P and JetSend are a good start.

Standards must be applied in a way that gives users convenience yet still allow camera designers the flexibility and freedom to create innovative designs.

When digital cameras are as easy to use as 35-mm film cameras, and anyone can take good pictures with them, transfer them to any other digital camera or computer or printer-then we will have succeeded and the market will blossom.

— Robert Taylor is vice president of engineering and co-founder of Sierra Imaging (Scotts Valley, Calif.), a digital-imaging-focused OEM component supplier.