Intel740, Cube & Dvx. Oh my!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Marty, better send this to that Mpegged Yahoo.
You win Billy! The C-Cube Dvx Codec snaps onto the i740.
OK, this has to be good for Zoran too.
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techweb.com
C-Cube, Zoran DVD cards snap onto i740 boards
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 this 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 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.
Diverging roads
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 this 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.
Copyright (c) 1998 CMP Media Inc. |
