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September 15th, 2005
Envivio Ships 1,500th MPEG 4 Encoder
Envivio, Inc. has announced that it has shipped its 1,500th MPEG-4
encoder chip. Julien Signes, President and CTO of Envivio indicated that the chip enables service providers to offer competitive
digital services, "With cost effective HD MPEG-4 set-top box silicon now available, service providers will be able to adopt
end-to-end MPEG-4 systems that support both HD and SD streams, thus allowing them to offer extremely competitive digital video
service. The HD3 offers low bit rate, high quality MPEG-4 video at resolutions up to 1080i, making it an excellent fit for
applications from contribution to distribution."
Envivio also announced its Broadcast Series real time MPEG-4 HD
encoder, the 4Caster HD3, as well as its SD encoding system, the 4Caster B3. The 4Caster HD3 offers picture quality at transmission
speeds less than 10 Mbps.
September 14th, 2005
Sigma Design and Microsoft Announce
IPTV Solution
Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Sigma Designs Inc. (NASDAQ:SIGM)
at the International Broadcasters Convention announced a chip solution for low-cost, high-definition IPTV based on Microsoft’s
TV Internet Protocol Television software platform. The new chip, Sigma Design’s SMP8634 media processor used for the
design of IPTV-ready receivers, along with Microsoft’s platform gives settop box companies the capability to produce
products to deliver full-service home IPTV services. The chip supports a number of standard peripherals and interfaces to
lower settop manufacturers’ cost. USB2.0, IDE, Ethernet, HDMI, VC-1 and H.264 (MPEG-4) video codec support are some
of the features integrated into the chip.
According to Ken Lowe, vice president of strategic marketing at
Sigma Designs. "Platforms based on Sigma's SMP8634 and Microsoft IPTV Edition offer the dual benefit of achieving a dramatically
new user experience and significantly lowering the cost of IPTV-ready receivers. Ultimately, high-definition content will
help come alive for consumers as a clearly differentiated service."
At Microsoft, Phil Corman, director of Worldwide Partner Development
for the Microsoft TV Division indicated that the solution developed with Sigma Designs will bring benefits to settop manufacturers,
"Our collaboration with Sigma is a great example of driving innovation in the IPTV industry that will ultimately enable an
exciting world of next-generation TV and connected-entertainment experiences that consumers do not enjoy with today's legacy
TV offerings. The combination of Sigma's new SoC and the Microsoft TV IPTV Edition software platform will bring significant
benefits to set-top manufacturers, IPTV service providers and consumers alike."
Sigma’s SMP8634 media processor integrates decoder engines,
graphics acceleration, multi-standard audio decoding, a dedicated secure processor, flash memory, digital rights management
(DRM) engines, a 300-MIPS host CPU, a 3.2 GB/second unified memory controller, an Ethernet 10/100 controller, dual USB 2.0
controller, and IDE controller.
Hardware partners that have confirmed support for the Microsoft
TV platform include Linksys-KiSS, Motorola Inc., Scientific-Atlanta Inc., Tatung Co. and Thomson.
September 8th, 2005
A carbon nanotube based television (CNTV) has been developed by Applied Nanotech, Inc. The television, which was
developed with six Japanese based display component manufacturing has a 25 inch diagonal and a resolution of 280 x 200 color
lines. According to Dr. Zvi Yaniv, CEO of Applied Nanotech, "This proof of concept is a critical achievement in that the processes,
including printing-like processes, used in creating the display will allow manufacturers to dramatically reduce the capital
investment needed to produce CNT TVs."
The new CNTV display is said to be compatible with low-cost CMOS drivers.
September 1st, 2005
DiBcom’s Mobile TV Marketing Effort Receives
24.5 Million Euro Investment
DiBcom, a France-based fabless semiconductor focused with
one of the first MobileTV chipsets, has closed a fourth round of funding valued at 24.5 million Euros. Investments for
the fourth round came from Partech International, Intel Capital, 3i, WI Harper and UMC. The funding is planned for sales
and marketing as well as R&D.
End-markets for the technology, which enables television reception
in high-speed transportation applications such as high-speed rail, include automobiles, cell phones, notebook PCs, and portable
media players.
With its investment, Intel indicated that it would support mobile
TV for its notebook platforms. According to Sam Arditi, VP and general manager of Intel's Communications Handheld Group.
"We are pleased to invest in DiBcom and support the efforts of rolling out DVB-H for mobile TV on our Xscale handheld and
Centrino notebook platforms," He also added, "DiBcom has been the first to market in DVB-H silicon for handheld devices, and
a leading DVB-T supplier to the automobile and notebook PC market segments for several years. We see significant opportunities
for mobile TV in these platforms going forward." Intel already sells its semiconductor chips into.the automotive, cellular
and PC markets.
August 26th, 2005
Through the efforts of two fabless chip companies, PLX Technology (NASDAQ:PLXT) and ViXS Systems, turning your PC into
a television may become as simple as connecting a mouse to your laptop’s USB port . The new reference design the two
companies have developed combines ViXS’ XCode II-L MPEG encoder and PLX’s NET2282 Hi-Speed USB peripheral controller.
The solution also includes PLX Remote PCI (RPCI) development tool.
The reference design, featured at the recent Intel Developer Forum, is intended to enable PC-TV tuner board manufacturers
a consumer friendly alternative to PC-TV tuner cards. At issue is the inconvenience of PC-TV board installation. The new solution
also brings high quality video and offers features such as dual stream personal video recording (PVR) and high speed DVD archiving.
Noting ViXS’ differentiating low-bit technology and the capability for the reference design to transform an ordinary
PC or laptop to a multimedia PC was Jimmy Chou, product marketing manager at PLX Technology, "ViXS' advanced video technology,
XCode II-L, has the unique ability to support multiple streams of high-quality video at low bit rates, and its high-speed
transrating and transcoding made it an obvious choice for this reference design. Through this partnership, consumers can expect
to see standalone, USB-connected dual TV tuner products from manufacturers that provide the ability to instantly transform
any PC or laptop with a USB connection into a multimedia PC."
As well, the reference design provides a PCI-to-USB solution. According to Shawn Saleem, vice president of ViXS Systems,
"PLX provides an extremely robust and cost-effective PCI-to-USB solution, and it is particularly well suited to co-exist with
the ViXS offering," said "The USB market holds a large share of the total TV tuner cards sold worldwide. This collaboration
with PLX gives us an immediate entry point into a significant market in the home networking industry."
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