Mitsubishi Chooses Wind River Software And Services For High-Definition Digital Televisions

Global Leader In Widescreen Televisions Tapped for ""Cool Customer Design"" Award

18-Jan-02

Wind River Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: WIND), a leading provider of software and services for connected smart devices, awarded the Mitsubishi Platinum and Diamond series of high-definition digital projection televisions its ""Cool Customer Design"" award. To develop these innovative consumer products, Mitsubishi used Wind River's software and development tools including the market-leading VxWorksÆ embedded real-time operating system (RTOS), Personal Jworksô Java operating environment, WindMLô multimedia library, and TornadoÆ integrated development environment. To further shorten their development cycle, Mitsubishi utilized design engineering services from Wind River. Mitsubishi is currently demonstrating its digital televisions at its booth at CES. ""Mitsubishi chose Wind River's technology because of the company's maturity, its proven track record with reliable and leading-edge technology, and its ability to support us locally in both Japan and the United States during all phases of product development,"" said Robert A. Perry, Vice President of Marketing for Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, Inc. ""In today's competitive business climate, we could not afford any slips in the schedule. After evaluating a range of operating systems, we decided to use the VxWorks RTOS and associated Tornado tools, allowing our development team to immediately start designing our next generation digital TVs. Bringing technologies such as high-definition decoding and full support for the HAVi specification to market in the shortest possible time was the most important concern in our decision."" All nine of Mitsubishi's initial digital televisions feature a cinematic, 16:9 high-definition image with integrated digital decoding built directly into the TV. There is no need for the added cost of an external set-top box. Mitsubishi also plans to provide compact flash software upgrades for the latest in digital TV standards, protecting customers' investments in their products. The digital TVs also incorporate advanced EDFô lenses to provide a clearer picture focus along the edges of the screen, as well as the most advanced video processing and customization system in the television industry. ""Wind River's goal is to provide highly integrated, market-specific products and services that help our customers bring smart connected devices to market easily and on time,"" said Sayeed Choudhury, Director of Business Development, Asia, Wind River Platforms business unit. ""Next-generation digital TV and set-top multimedia platforms need both leading-edge runtime components and class-leading development tools, which is precisely what Wind River brings to the table. By choosing Wind River, companies like Mitsubishi are able to focus on product innovation and brand value, rather than wasting valuable time integrating individual components."" Some of the features less visible to consumers but important to the seamless integration and usage of the products include first-time support for the Home Audio Video Interoperability (HAVi) specification, facilitating a fully-integrated control system for an entire home theatre setup. By incorporating the embedded FireBusô IEEE 1394, 5C and HAVi protocol stack from WindLinkô partner VividLogic, running on the Wind River Personal JWorks operating environment, Mitsubishi's innovative NetCommandô user interface and control feature enables customers to experience seamless interconnectivity to other HAVi-enabled consumer electronics devices, such as digital VCRs, DVD players, and personal video recorder (PVR) hard drives, as well as most common analog home theatre products. With just a few clicks of the remote control, consumers can conveniently control their home theatre system using the on-screen icon-based NetCommand interface. This technology also allows the TV to actually ""learn"" to control future products that have not yet been imagined, further protecting customers' investments. For more information about Wind River, visit www.windriver.com. For more information about VividLogic, visit www.vividlogic.com. For more information about Mitsubishi digital televisions, visit www.mitsubishi-tv.com/products.html.

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http://www.windriver.com
http://www.vividlogic.com
http://www.mitsubishi-tv.com/products.html