I was only reminded of my annoyance at something when I received a second reminder from Texas Instruments inviting me to sign up for one of the current DaVinci Technology Technical Seminars being held around the US.
The DaVinci™ platform (the trademark claim is TI's, not mine) is a digital video implementation using the TMS320DM64x family of DSPs.
It is a very clever mix of hardware and software that allows designers to quickly get digital video implementations for "videophones, automobile infortainment (sic), digital still cameras, streaming media, IP set-top boxes, video security" etc. It was introduced in December 2005. In an interview with David Koenig of the Associated Press in May 2006, Will Strauss (Forward Concept) said: "[DaVinci's complicated design] isn't very elegant, but hey, it works and it works now." The latter is a reference to the fact that there are others out there who are looking to get all of the DaVinci type functionality on a single chip.
Strauss also noted that "DaVinci currently draws too much power to use it on cellphones, but it could be deployed elsewhere -- from surveillance systems to personal media players."
Whether that is something that can be fixed in the future is not in my world of experience to say but the winner in this kind of video market will take a substantial market position and TI needs that win because of its heavy dependence on cellphone business (its largest single customer is reputed to be Nokia).
My annoyance doesn't stem from what TI's product does. It will give perfectly adequate pictures for the markets it is intended for. And, no doubt, there will be more powerful DSPs in the future that will allow them to produce the really stunning images that can be produced by other means. In Da Vinci terms, the artist, the DaVinci platform hasn't seen colors yet! No, my annoyance is over the name being flogged by the company.
In 1984, a company headquartered in Florida announced a color enhancement technology for video. It called itself Da Vinci Systems. Their first products, and then their main technology platform for both enhancement and image restoration, produced outstanding images and for that they were awarded a Technical Emmy (I was on the National Television Arts and Sciences committee that made the awards that year).
Fast-forward to 2005 -- twenty-one years after -- and TI steals the name, also for the video space? And claiming a trademark to boot? Oh, perhaps it is different because there is no space between the Da and the Vinci? Well, it appears that Da Vinci also called himself Davinci and it may even have been the more common.
Ironically Da Vinci Systems is now owned by JDS Uniphase -- heavy into lasers and communications test equipment -- and TIer's and JDSUer's are on a lot of joint work platforms together including partnerships in BIRD (the Israel-US Bi-National Industrial R&D group) and both are large customers of one another.
In a market application the worst thing that can happen is for the customer to get confused about what is what. The basic image quality of the Texas Instruments DaVinci platform cannot be compared to the image quality of Da Vinci Systems product outputs. In no way. If a designer believes that the use of the DSP is going to be getting him/her a slice of Da Vinci Systems' technologies he/she is going, rightly, to be ticked off. If someone is contemplating a Da Vinci Systems' product the salesperson doesn't want the customer to think that it is getting DaVinci platform quality.
This is a lose-lose situation for both companies; TI needs to back off somehow -- with good grace, a new name, and an admission that it was a foolish branding. They also need to back off from the silly trademark claim.
Before, that is, it truly becomes an Apples to Apples scenario.
