Good Morn. All - A little ZRAN news (and there is that little BB-OTC company AURL again)...
Tuesday February 10, 7:04 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
Zoran Announces Industry's First Virtual 3-D Audio
Reference Design to Shorten OEM's Time to Market
Stand-alone Design Using Zoran's ZR38600 Digital Audio Processor Gives
Virtual 3-D Sound Field To Systems With Merely Two Speakers
SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 10, 1998-- Zoran Corporation
(NASDAQ:ZRAN - news), the world's leading supplier of Dolby AC-3 devices, announced today
the availability of the industry's first Virtual Surround Decoder (VSD) reference-design. At a Bill of
Materials (BOM) cost of well under $20 in volume, this low-parts-count printed circuit board
dramatically reduces the development time and shortens the time-to-market of Dolby Digital and
ProLogic speaker systems that create the multichannel movie theater experience with just two
speakers. Using the high processing speed of the ZR38600, the latest member in Zoran's ZR38xxx
family of digital audio processors, the VSD is able to decode the bit stream, and with its excess
speed and performance, also generate 3-D virtual surround sound. This reference design brings
outstanding surround sound in TVs, set-top boxes, computer speakers, and wired and cordless
headphones.
The ZR7386001-7 VSD board combines Zoran's industry standard ZR38600 Digital Audio
Processor chip, a stereo CODEC, an EPROM holding six 3-D algorithms, and simple controls that
enable stand-alone, host-free operation. By eliminating the ubiquitous micro-controller, OEM's
product designs are reduced in complexity, size and cost. Zoran's VSD board takes the industry
standard S/P-DIF serial bit stream from a DVD player, or the standard PCM serial bit stream from
a Laserdisc or CD player. It also can take the analog stereo inputs from a TV receiver, VHS tape
recorder, Video CD Player, computer sound card or existing hi-fi matrix stereo receiver, and
create exciting digital 3-D sound. An on board CODEC converts the analog inputs to digital for
ProLogic and 3-D processing. The VSD outputs are line level signals which are matched to
television and A/V receiver analog inputs. In addition, a S/P-DIF transmitter is included which
outputs a formatted digital stream ideal for input to digital A/V receivers.
Today, OEM's need to offer high-performance virtual surround in response to consumer demand
for two speaker surround configurations. This option is required when only two speakers are
available or wires cannot be conveniently run to the conventional rear surround speakers. OEMs
need only add volume control and amplifiers for a complete design. If used in a stand alone system,
or if the VSD is configured as a set top box, the VSDs virtual surround audio outputs are simply
connected to two output connectors. The VSD also accepts analog stereo inputs from a DVD
player, TV or VCR, using the on-board CODEC to convert them to digital for processing by the
ZR38600. All virtual 3-D algorithms can also process plain stereo and Dolby ProLogic surround
signals, enabling the VSD to produce analog and stereo 3-D outputs. Host-free stand-alone
operation is made possible by storing a ZR38600 control program in the same EPROM that stores
the 3-D algorithms.
Six popular virtual 3-D algorithms are available as Zoran Silicon Software modules. They are:
A3D(tm) (Aureal) Dolby Virtual Surround(tm)
Q-Surround(tm)(QSound) TruSurround(tm) (SRS)
N-2-2(tm) (Spatializer) VMAx(tm)(Harman)
The VSD board has additional room in the EPROM for new or customer-designed virtual 3-D
algorithms as well as bass management programs. The reference design schematics and pc board
drawings are made available free-of-charge. Zoran's Audio Product Team is available to provide
assistance with integration of the VSD into OEM product.
Zoran's third-generation ZR38600 Digital Audio Processor has 40 MIPS, (million instructions per
second) performance. After decoding the Dolby Digital AC-3 serial bit-stream, a surplus of 10
MIPS is available for virtual 3-D or other music mode processing. The optimized for audio
architecture of the ZR38600 enables excellent performance to be achieved from the VSD
reference design. OEMs are able to achieve significant economies by not incurring the expense of a
second DSP chip to run music mode or bass re-direction algorithms.
''The VSD continues Zoran's tradition of enabling major OEMs of consumer audio products to
significantly shorten their design cycles by offering complete system solutions needed for both
decoding audio bit streams and creating high-quality virtualized audio outputs,'' said Paul Goldberg,
Zoran's Vice President of Audio Products. ''Zoran's ZR38xxx family of Digital Audio Processors
are used by virtually every major manufacturer of consumer audio equipment, and are in almost all
Dolby-equipped movie theaters world-wide.''
Zoran Corporation
Zoran Corporation develops and markets integrated circuits, integrated circuit cores and software
for digital video and audio applications, enabled by compression, for the PC and consumer
multimedia markets. Zoran's product lines include JPEG codecs, MPEG and DVD decoders,
Dolby Digital and MPEG audio decoders, real-time Video CD and DVD software for the PC, and
VLSI cores. The company's software is bundled by PC and graphic system manufacturers for
software-only or hardware-assisted Video CD, DVD and JPEG compressed video playback on
the PC. Current applications for Zoran IC products include professional and consumer video
editing systems, filmless digital cameras, PC-based or stand-alone Video CD systems and DVD
players, and digital audio systems.
Zoran is headquartered in Santa Clara, California with additional operations in Haifa, Israel,
Toronto, Canada, and Tokyo, Japan. Zoran's products and technologies have been adopted by
many of the world's largest manufacturers including Acer, Altec Lansing, ATI, Avid Technology,
Cirrus Logic, Compaq, Denon, Diamond Multimedia, Dolby, FujiFilm, Fujitsu, Harman Kardon,
Hewlett Packard, Hitachi, IBM, Iomega, Kenwood, Marantz, Matrox, Matsushita, NEC, Packard
Bell, Pinnacle/miro, Pioneer, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba, Truevision, Yamaha and many
others. For more information about Zoran call (408) 919-4111 or contact the website at
www.zoran.com.
Note to Editors: ZR38600 is a trademark of Zoran Corporation. Dolby Digital (AC-3) and Dolby
ProLogic are trademarks of Dolby Licensing Corporation. All other trade marks are the property
of their owners.
Contact:
Zoran Corporation
Tanya Del Vecchio, 408/919-4229
tanya@zoran.com
zoran.com
or
Virtual Public Relations
Carey Mitchell, 650/369-7833
carey@virtualpr.com
or
Financial Relations Board
Hannah Bruce, 415/986-1591
hbb@sf.frbd.com
More Quotes and News:
Zoran Corp (Nasdaq:ZRAN - news)
Related News Categories: computers, entertainment, semiconduct |
