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Fremont, Calif- Aspiring to provide one-stop DVD shopping for PC OEMs, Mediamatics Inc. has launched a family of MPEG-2 and AC-3 decoding solutions, including a software-only scheme that could have a big impact on graphics-chip accelerators. It is tailored for PCs equipped with Intel Corp. MMX CPUs.
The software solution springs from a patent-pending hardware/software partitioning system that moves motion-compensation logic-a portion of MPEG-2 video decoding-to a graphics controller. Trident Microsystems Inc. (Mountain View, Calif.) has already licensed the architecture and launched a graphics controller with MPEG-2 acceleration capability. Prem Nath, president and CEO of Mediamatics, believes this kind of MPEG-2 acceleration will soon become a "checklist item" for graphics controllers.
Mediamatica, based here, is offering flexible implementation options ranging from combined software/hardware to softwareonly. For CPUs without the MMX multimedia extensions, Mediamatics' software-only audio decoder, the DVDExpress Audio Player, works with any third-party MPEG-2 video-decoder IC. MMX PCs, meanwhile, get a software-only audio and video decoder, the DVDExpress A/V Player.
OEMs have already seen Intel demonstrate DVD playback on an MMX-enabled PC using Zoran Corp.'s...