Conexant Unveils Platform For PC/HDTV
Less than a month after announcing its alliance to work with Ravisent Technologies (Malvern, Pennsylvania) to develop products for bringing HDTV to the PC, Conexant (Newport Beach, California) has introduced the first product from the alliance: the DStream ATSC single card reference platform, the world's first truly affordable NTSC/ATSC receiver card for HDTV. Now, new PC systems can be inexpensively configured to receive and display HDTV broadcasts on standard PC monitors, providing a true high-definition viewing experience not available on most consumer display devices. Conexant's DStreamATSC offering combines Conexant's industry-leading Fusionô 878A PCI video decoder and software drivers with the Ravisent (Nasdaq: RVST) CineMasterÆ HDTV all-software MPEG-2 all-format decoder. This gives PC OEMs an easy-to-implement design platform for bringing the first HDTV broadcasts to the mainstream Pentium-III PC for less than $150. Ravisntís CineMaster HDTV delivers full-quality decoding and playback of broadcast digital television signals, including the 720 progressive format (720p) at 60 frames per second and the 1080 interlaced format (1080i) at 30 frames per second. It is estimated that more than 50 percent of television households throughout the United States are already covered by terrestrial digital broadcast signals, and by 2003, all U.S. stations licensed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are required to completely convert to digital television broadcasting. According to industry analyst firm Cahners In-Stat Group, the worldwide market for DTV tuners for personal computers will grow to nearly 3 million units by 2002. ""DTV-equipped PCs are going to expand the reach of digital television to a broad base of consumers,"" said Gerry Kaufhold, Principal Analyst at Cahners In-Stat Group. ""Because they enable consumers to reap the benefits of digital television at significantly lower cost points than early-generation digital TV sets, they are going to be significant drivers of digital TV market penetration over the next several years. ""Datacasting to personal computers presents near-term revenue opportunities for local digital TV stations, and broadcasters are already climbing on board to promote personal computers as DTV terminals."" Until now, HDTV broadcasts could only be watched on expensive, $5,000 to $10,000 consumer sets with partial resolution, or on PCs equipped with $400 to $500 worth of hardware upgrades. ""With the DStreamATSC solution, we've leveraged the power of recently introduced Intel processors to make HDTV reception and playback an immersive, high-quality experience,"" said Greg Fischer, Director of Marketing for Conexant's Digital Infotainment Division. ""Products based on the DStreamATSC architecture will enable inexpensive, full-resolution HDTV and Dolby Digital AC-3 audio on OEM systems in the year 2000. With the DStreamATSC platform, we've also established a robust platform for future enhancements like pause-TV viewing, digital VCR and electronic programming guides that take advantage of the PC's powerful interactive capabilities."" ""We're very pleased that Ravisent's software architecture is enabling Conexant to be the first company to offer the PC OEM market a complete and affordable HDTV solution,"" said Michael Harris, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Ravisent. ""Our whole purpose is to make it easier and faster for OEM manufacturers like Conexant to deliver digital product platforms ahead of the mass market and this low-cost HDTV offering exemplifies that perfectly."" Conexant's DStreamATSC platform can be used with any graphics accelerator chip supporting DVD playback capability and current high-speed processors, such as Intel's Pentium-III processors. Graphics chips that employ advanced DVD playback acceleration, such as the ATI RAGE 128 Pro, enhance the DStreamATSC architecture one step further by reducing the CPU speed requirements to 600 MHz. ""The Fusion 878A is a powerful architecture and when combined with the inverse discrete cosine transform (iDCT) technology of our RAGE 128 Pro product, enables today's Pentium-III processors with HDTV capability. ATI is the only mainstream graphics chip producer that offers this capability today,"" said Jewelle Schiedel-Webb, Director of the Visual Products Group, ATI Technologies Inc. ""When used with Conexant's DStreamATSC architecture, the RAGE 128 Pro reduces overall processor loading, enabling high-performance HDTV rendering for the broadest range of PC systems shipping next year."" The DStreamATSC solution's silicon foundation is Conexant's recently announced Fusion 878A PCI video decoder. The Fusion 878A uses the same innovative architecture as the industry's most popular Fusion family of single-chip video decoders. These were the first of their kind to seamlessly integrate audio and video capture into products that can be connected directly to the PC's high-performance PCI bus for video capture and NTSC/PAL/SECAM analog television applications. Conexant will demonstrate its DStreamATSC reference platform at COMDEX/Fall `99, November 15 through Nov. 19 in Las Vegas. It is available immediately to select customers who are designing add-in board products for the industry's leading manufacturers of next-generation PCs. Products based on the DStreamATSC design are expected to be released into the marketplace during the first half of 2000.