This post came from the C-Cube thread.....
To: FredE (29487 )
From: John Rieman Saturday, Feb 14 1998 7:27AM EST
Reply # of 29495
Zoran's licenses motion compensation core...........................
February 16, 1998, Issue: 1096
Section: Semiconductors
Zoran licensing deal targets DVD standards
Mark Hachman
Silicon Valley- In a move that could help standardize the way DVD data is decoded, Zoran Corp. announced last week that it will ally itself with 15 silicon companies.
The alliance is intended to address the need for motion compensation, a means of processing the video data from a DVD to eliminate "artifacts," or errors.
Zoran has licensed its motion-compensation core to 11 manufacturers that have not included this function in their PC graphics chips: IXMicro Inc., Nvidia Inc., Silicon Motion Inc., and eight other companies that are still under nondisclosure agreements.
Zoran has also signed joint-development agreements with ATI Technologies Inc., Fujitsu Microelectronics, Rendition Inc., and S3 Inc. For these companies, which have developed motion-compensation cores for their graphics chips, Zoran will tailor its SoftDVD decoder to work with the cores.
"We view ourselves as a total systems provider," said Arvind Venkateswaran, core products marketing manager at Zoran, Santa Clara, Calif. "This announcement means that the industry will be able to ship a fully [software-based] DVD solution."
Cost "will be a key to the wide adoption of computer-based DVD video playback," said Christopher Knight, vice president of graphics marketing at IXMicro, San Jose, in a statement. "A software-only solution is necessary to deliver the magic price point that will drive universal consumer acceptance."
Intel Corp., whose new i740 graphics chip is designed to work with the Pentium II, has not licensed the core.
"We don't believe motion compensation is necessary with the performance generated by 400-MHz versions that will ship later this year," said Robert M. Gregory, director of graphics marketing at Intel, Santa Clara.
But for those systems with less-robust performance, adding a motion-compensation core can offload up to 30% to 40% of the CPU's clock cycles, Zoran's Venkateswaran said. "Even with the most efficient software program, you still need a lot of overhead," he said.
The motion-compensation core requires just under 5,000 gates of logic, Venkateswaran added.
For those customers requiring a fully hardware-based solution, Zoran also offers Vaddis, a hardware-based DVD decoder chip.
Copyright (c) 1998 CMP Media Inc.Copyright (c) 1998 CMP Media Inc.
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