Convergence gets a step closer:
Sigma Designs Unveils Breakthrough Set-Top Box Design
World's First PC-Centric Set-Top Box with On-board Hardware MPEG Ready-to-Build Reference Design Available Now
LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 20, 1999--Sigma Designs, Inc. (Nasdaq:SIGM - news), the leading provider of DVD/MPEG-2 decoder solutions, announced today the immediate availability of its next-generation set-top box reference design, the STB 2000.
In its premier at the 1999 National Association of Broadcasters Convention, this unique convergence appliance will demonstrate a dramatic leap in flexibility, performance, and cost-reduction for cable companies, telcos, ISPs, satellite providers, and systems integrators that are deploying high bandwidth, digital video-ready Internet services.
Sigma's new set-top box design will provide users with a single appliance for browsing the Internet, sending/receiving e-mail, playing DVD and CD disks, ordering movies on-demand, and more.
Larry Ellison of Oracle (Nasdaq:ORCL - news), for example, demonstrated in his NAB keynote address how an inexpensive, diskless set-top box equipped with REALmagic can display true time-shifted video-on-demand over a switched network. This revolutionary demonstration showed how, using today's latest network technology, anyone can come home from work and watch any program that was played on any TV channel that day, with fast forward and reverse play.
A diskless, encoder-less set-top box is absolutely the best digital VCR solution on the market today. It is less expensive because it eliminates two expensive parts -- the encoder and the hard disk. And it is easier to use, because it requires no programming of start times and channels.
The graphics subsystem on the box is the result of a close partnership between Sigma Designs and IGS Technologies of Santa Clara, Calif. The IGST CyberPro5050 multimedia controller features flicker-free NTSC and PAL TV output and has the highest picture quality rating of any chip for ensuring sharp, crisp display and blending of any video, text and graphics on TV sets. This is absolutely critical for enabling web browsing on standard TVs, which offer much lower resolution than computer monitors.
''Sigma Designs selected IGST for its leadership position in set top box multimedia,'' said Mike Raghavan, senior director of marketing at IGST. ''We are committed to making the Sigma Designs set top box design the most attractive platform for an OEM by providing far superior video quality and real-time OS support than any competitor.''
The REALmagic EM 8220 MPEG-2/DVD decoder chip on the motherboard interfaces directly to the CyberPro display chip for high-performance video in a window as well as full-screen DVD and MPEG-2 video playback that equals today's conventional set-top DVD players.
Further enhancing the STB 2000 is complete DirectShow streaming video support and full compatibility with the Oracle Video Server, SGI MediaBase, Microsoft NetShow Theater, Minerva VNP, VSoft VideoClick, InfoValue QuickVideo, BroadLogic Satellite Express DVB receivers, and the Philips CleverCastPC Data Broadcast System.
The STB 2000 can be configured by OEMs with a wide variety of network interface cards (NICs) and receiver cards for transmissions capabilities such as Ethernet, ATM, ADSL, cable modem, DVB, DSS, VSB, QAM, QPSK, and CODFM. This enables ISPs of any sort -- cable operators, telcos, and ADSL providers -- to deploy an integrated, low-cost solution that can combine on-demand and live television programming with Internet web browsing, e-mail, and a variety of other online services.
In addition to supporting the Windows 98 operating system, MPEG device driver support is also available for WindRiver VxWorks, a very popular, proven real-time operating system for embedded devices. This gives OEMs the opportunity to easily deploy fully embedded set-top boxes with streaming MPEG-2 as well as Internet web browsing.
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