Intel Investors - Just when you thought you read enough about the i740 Graphics chip....
Intel and the graphics board manufacturers "kept a little back" in their announcements yesterday. Apparently, Intel incorporated into the i740 Graphics Board Guidelines a Plug-in Module - Video Module Interface - that will allow C-Cube and Zoran to offer DVD modules that plug directly onto the i740-based graphics boards.
For further details, here's the first article describing this Video Module Interface.
Paul
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techweb.cmp.com
DVD cards from C-Cube, Zoran
snap onto i740 boards
By Junko Yoshida and Anthony Cataldo
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- MPEG-2 chip makers are ready
to leap on the bandwagon of Intel Corp.'s i740 3-D
graphics processor with multimedia add-ons, some of
which will be launched next week.
MPEG-2 chips from C-Cube Microsystems Inc.
(Milpitas, Calif.) and Zoran Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.)
will link to the i740 via a Video Module Interface
consisting of a video and host port, which is designed
to enable DVD, TV, Intercast and video capture. A
digital interface--dubbed CCIR601--is the primary
capture standard.
Both Zoran and C-Cube have worked closely with Intel
over the past several months to ensure their DVD
daughtercards can gluelessly snap onto Intel's
i740-based 2-D/3-D graphics boards. In addition,
Rockwell Semiconductor Systems (Newport Beach,
Calif.) hopes to include its new Bt869 video-out and
Bt829 video-in devices on the boards, and
Hauppauge Computer Works (Hauppauge, N.Y.)
hopes to place its TV tuner chips on i740 adapters or
daughtercards.
C-Cube and Zoran provide their own hardware-based
MPEG-2 audio/video decoder ICs to their respective
cards, but their solutions offer diverging design
options and road maps for OEMs.
Approaching the under-$1,000 PC market from two
directions at once, C-Cube will hit next week's Intel
Developers Forum here with a DVD daughterboard,
and will follow it with a single-chip MPEG-2
encode/decode IC, which is touted as a key to
VCR-like TV recording capability for a PC.
Zoran's daughtercard, meanwhile, offers an option of
software DVD audio decoding for PC OEMs. Though
the company's Vaddis chip can provide MPEG-2
audio and video decoding in hardware when used on
a DVD daughtercard, Zoran wants to give OEMs the
option of using its hybrid software/ hardware decoding
solutions.
Both daughtercard designs consist of a hardwired
MPEG-2 audio/video decoder IC, a 27-MHz oscillator
and memory: four units of 4-Mbit EDO DRAM in
C-Cube's card and a 16-Mbit SDRAM in Zoran's. |
