Released this morning:
Sigma Designs Announces NetStream MPEG-2 Playback
Card for Business Applications
Latest MPEG-2 Playback Card From Sigma Offers Highest Digital Video
Playback Quality Easily Adds Streaming MPEG-2 Video to Corporate LANs
and WANs
FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 26, 1998-- Sigma Designs, Inc. (Nasdaq:SIGM -
news), a leader in digital video solutions for personal computers, today announced the
REALmagic NetStream 2 MPEG-2 Playback card. The NetStream 2 enables users to easily
play high-quality streaming video and audio on corporate LANs and WANs. Offering the highest
digital video playback quality available, NetStream 2 plays streaming video on VGA displays
and television sets with better quality than cable television, VHS tape, or laserdisk.
The easy-to-use NetStream 2 PCI card offers full plug and play installation and compatibility
with a broad range of third-party applications, including video servers for video on demand,
MPEG encoders for stored or real-time playback, satellite delivery systems, streaming video
playback systems and scores of customizable interactive training titles.
''With streaming MPEG-2 video, users see television-quality content from Ethernet LAN, ATM,
ADSL, or satellite without interruption or delay,'' added Talreja. ''With NetStream 2 this new
technology is accessible and affordable to everybody. For example, using Microsoft's NetShow
Theater Server, hundreds of PCs will be able to use NetStream 2 to view broadcast-quality
video on their PCs.''
''Our customers want broadcast quality video. By combining Microsoft's NetShow Theater
Server and Sigma's NetStream 2 client decoder cards, we can deliver stunning video and audio
on a network,'' said Dave Seres, Product Manager at Microsoft. ''The market for streaming
video is growing rapidly with applications such as interactive training, marketing and sales
automation, corporate communications, advertising, and movies-on-demand for hotels and
airlines,'' he added.
''Corporations are beginning to deploy infrastructure supporting deployment of digital video to
include playback on desktop PCs,'' said Ralph Rogers, principal analyst for multimedia at
Dataquest, San Jose. ''Sigma Designs' MPEG playback products are well positioned to
capitalize on this trend as shown by their success in accounts such as Wal-Mart and Smith
Barney.''
''NetStream 2 is being evaluated by over a dozen major strategic partners that are creating
compatible products for streaming video applications,'' commented Prem Talreja, Sigma
Designs' Vice President of Marketing. Sigma's strategic partners include Microsoft, Silicon
Graphics, Oracle, First Virtual, Starlight Networks, Hughes Network Systems, InfoValue,
ixMicro, MIDI, Clarity, OptiVision, FutureTel, InnovaCom, and Packet Engines.
Key applications for NetStream 2 include distribution of financial news to users' desktops,
delivery of training to factory workers, surgeons or executives, distance learning, video on
demand in hotels, ships, and trains, and interactive retail sales kiosks and ATMs. NetStream
products are already installed in major 'seed' projects including a leading cruise line, a major
hotel chain, a power and light utility, an in-home ADSL video-on-demand project, and several
campus-wide deployments at leading universities.
For maximum flexibility, NetStream supports simultaneous VGA monitor, S-Video and composite
NTSC and PAL-encoded television video output. The VGA video output uses an analog overlay
technology, guaranteeing 100% compatibility with virtually all VGA video cards. The hardware
X-Y scalar delivers smooth, 24-bit full-color video with no impact on CPU, PCI, or VGA
performance.
Delivering live video playback with absolutely no skipping or jerkiness, NetStream 2 uses a
precision variable clock (VCXO) to lock the NetStream decoder to the frame rate of the
broadcast encoder. This ensures that no audio or video frames are dropped or duplicated. To
minimize CPU overhead, NetStream 2 uses PCI DMA bus transfer, not programmed I/O. Video
and audio decompression and playback are both performed by on-board hardware.
NetStream 2 features support for Microsoft's ActiveMovie, now known as DirectShow 2.0. This
API is used by most leading full-screen video servers, including Microsoft's NetShow Theater,
the Oracle Video Server, the Silicon Graphics WebForce Media Server, Sun's MediaCenter, the
Starlight Starcaster, First Virtual V-Cast, InfoValue QuickVideo, and a wide variety of other
hardware and software products for streaming stored and live video.
''Our Microsoft DirectShow API support ensures that anyone with familiarity with HTML or
Visual Basic can easily create streaming video applications,'' commented Talreja. ''With
DirectShow, a single application can play MPEG-2 from disk, video servers or live encoders
without having to deal with the different ways those sources stream video.'' NetStream 2 will
ship with the Microsoft DirectShow Player, an easy-to-use ActiveX control which can be
embedded inside web pages and Visual Basic applications.
Supporting home theater quality audio systems, NetStream 2 decodes and plays Dolby Digital
(AC-3) and Pro Logic 5:1 channel surround sound in hardware, with stereo output. 16-bit, |
