Micronas PCI Express™ Multimedia Controller nGene® Captures Key Design Wins in PC-TV Tuner Cards (0502)
CES, Las Vegas, Nevada, January 08, 2005 - The convergence of the PC and entertainment worlds moved a step closer today with the announcement of two key PC television products based on Micronas' cutting-edge nGene® Dual Channel PCI Express™ Multimedia Controller. PROLINK Microsystems Corporation's next-generation TV Tuner card PixelView® PlayTV PCX600 series is the world's first PCI Express™ TV Card supporting dual channel capabilities. The nGene® architecture allows for picture in picture (PiP) and record-while-viewing; Cyberlink's PowerCinema allows easy integration of these advanced features into PC platforms.
The first member of the Micronas nGene® family, the APB7202A IC facilitates a complete TV solution for audio and video to the PC system bus. It accepts virtually any format of digital or analog TV signal, and provides all the processing needed to place the decoded signal on the PCI Express bus. Based on Micronas' extensive consumer TV experience, nGene® leverages the bus bandwidth of PCI Express™ to support two simultaneous input channels with full image and audio quality. This dual-channel capability allows a viewer to monitor a second channel with PiP or watch one channel while recording another. It's even possible to record two different programs at once.
"Almost all new PCs include the PCI Express™ bus. This gives us the bandwidth and capabilities to make Entertainment PCs do all the things users want," said Eric Lin of PROLINK. "Micronas' nGene® allows us to combine the features needed for high-definition viewing, Personal Video Recording (PVRs) and other features at the right price."
PROLINK's PixelView PlayTV PCX600 series card is all the hardware needed to turn a PC into an Entertainment PC. It supports analog TV reception with a single RF input, and two tuners capable of receiving two different TV channels at once. In addition, the card features baseband stereo audio and video inputs in Composite and SVideo formats as well as an S/PDIF optical input. Since digital audio and video processing are combined on a single card, there are no extra wires for carrying the sound. This architecture guarantees perfect audio and video synchronization on both channels simultaneously.
nGene® comes with all required WDM and BDA drivers for integration into current Windows® XP and Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 operating systems. nGene® supports more advanced video capabilities as well. Video editing and DVD authoring applications can do more when paired with the Micronas device.
"CyberLink PowerCinema acts as the ultimate and ideal software with dual channel TV tuner cards. PowerCinema enables users to enjoy watching one program while recording another, as well as enjoying the picture-in-picture function for surfing between favorite TV shows, and provides features such as TV direct burn, electronic program guide (EPG), time shift recording," said Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink Corp. "Users can actually sit back and enjoy TV features from entertainment PCs just like they did in the past with consumer electronic TVs. We are glad to jointly demonstrate the infinite possibilities of the digital home."
The Micronas device is optimized for dual channel TV reception in all markets; for both high-definition and standard-definition digital TV systems, nGene® accepts compressed bitstreams from digital TV demodulators. In analog TV environments, it works with NTSC, PAL, SECAM and all sub-formats with equal ease. nGene®'s dual channel architecture is a breakthrough for the Entertainment PC market because it allows simultaneous viewing and recording of different TV channels.
With old-style analog TVs and VCRs, a consumer could watch one TV channel and record another, but first-generation Entertainment PCs could do only one thing or the other. nGene® leverages the new PCI Express™ technology to guarantee delivery of two uncompressed high quality video streams to the system. Getting uncompressed video into the system is critical because it allows the adoption of the latest video compression developments beyond MPEG-2, such as MPEG-4, DivX® video technology and Windows Media® Technology.
nGene® is part of the Micronas family of TV ICs, which offer a complete signal path for high quality television. The DRX3975D provides DVB-T reception. With the DRX396xA Digital IF IC, Micronas pioneered advanced IF processing for multi-standard reception of TV signals - using a single SAW filter per channel. The AVF491xA Audio/Video Decoder provides top-quality baseband signals. This signal path provides the nGene® APB7202A with the clear video signal it needs to provide consumer grade video for tomorrow's entertainment PC - today.