ATI PC to TV chip:
ATI Chip Promises To Turn Computer Into TV Set
TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's ATI Technologies is promising with its latest chip to turn the humble personal computer into a television, including the transformation of the PC's hard drive into a digital video cassette recorder.
ATI Technologies recently previewed its latest product, The All-In Wonder 128, a multimedia board it hopes will help it maintain its dominance in the hypercompetitive world of graphic accelerators.
''Our latest generation chip is five times faster than the previous chip of only one year ago,'' said K.Y. Ho, president of ATI Technologies.
The board, which starts shipping in March, has a built-in television tuner which, when attached to cable, turns a computer into a TV set. Other features are instant replay of a TV program, or video editing. The hard disk acts as a digital VCR.
The board's engine is the company's Rage 128 chip, the graphics accelerator which also powers ATI's business. In one animated product demo, a silver race car bounces off high red walls then skids through a wall of flame.
''See the light coming off the walls. We couldn't do that with the old card,'' says Jean-Francois Drolet, a technician at ATI., based in Markham, Ontario.
The All-In Wonder product is sold as separate unit by ATI while the Rage 128 chip is sold to manufacturers, such as Sony and Compaq, for use in their personal computers.
Most manufacturers make one or the other, either a chip to speed 3-D Graphics and other digital images, or a specialized product.
''The accelerator industry is quite competitive and my bet is we are going to see the number of players drop in 1999,'' says Byron Berry video and multimedia analyst at Yorkton Securities in Toronto. ''ATI will be one of the winners.''
The competitiveness of graphics accelerators is one reason ATI's stock has not performed as well as predicted by Berry and other analysts. But ATI is making money.
''ATI's revenues in our last fiscal year were approximately $1.2-billion. In the five years since becoming a public company we have posted revenue gains averaging more than 50 percent,'' said Ho. The company dominates the 3-D graphic market with 34 percent of market share. Its biggest competitors are S3, Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC - news), Nvidia and Matrox.
''ATI may be the only 3D-chip computer company not at risk of failure in 1999,'' said Peter Glaskowsky, editor of the Microprocessor Report, an industry newsletter from California. ''The only thing keeping some of these 3D companies alive is venture capital, but the seemingly endless supplies of capital surely are not infinite.''
He called the Rage Pro chip ''the greatest success story'' of the graphics card business in 1998.
''Now we are expanding into new markets such as set-top boxes for cable TV and consumer appliances.'' said Ho.
ATI already has its own prototype set-top box -- a combination VCR and instant replay machine as well as a personal computer, turning the television into a gateway to the Internet.
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