Sigma Designs introduces REALmagic Pro chipset to provide 16 million color MPEG playback at 1600 x 1200 85 Hz resolution; REALmagic Pro chipsets are also Windows 95, MPC3 compliant and are 100% compatible with OM-1 titles

Business Wire, Oct 31, 1995

FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 31, 1995--Sigma Designs Inc. (NASDAQ:SIGM), the manufacturer of the industry-standard REALmagic MPEG playback card, introduces its first available chipset for worldwide card and PC manufacturers, the REALmagic Pro, which incorporates breakthrough REAL Overlay technology.

The REALmagic Pro chipset will enable other companies to manufacture and market 100% OM-1 and REALmagic-compatible MPEG playback cards. These cards will be capable of playing more than 60 MPEG interactive titles available now from the more than 1,000 software developers now supporting REALmagic. The REALmagic Pro chipset's distinctive features include:

o Very high quality MPEG playback: over 16 million color MPEG

video, horizontal and vertical bi-linear interpolation, and

digital brightness, contrast and saturation adjustment

o Use of REAL Overlay chip, to enable mixing of MPEG video and

PC graphics at resolutions up to 1600 x 1200 with an 85 Hz

refresh rate

o 100% Windows 95 and MPC3 compliance

o 100% OM-1 and REALmagic compatibility

o Direct interface for NTSC/PAL decoder to support TV tuner

input

"The REALmagic Pro chipset elevates the quality of MPEG playback to a new high," says Thinh Tran, president of Sigma Designs. "REALmagic Pro will enable very low cost MPEG playback cards that will retain full compatibility with all MPEG interactive titles available now and in the future."

The REALmagic Pro chipset includes a scaler/mixer IC, a clock generator and the REAL Overlay chip. Samples are available now, with production volume beginning in January 1996. Board level products are expected to be available by Q1 1996.

MPEG titles now on the market include: Masters Golf (Creative Multimedia), In the Company of Whales (Discovery Channel), Ocean Life (Sumeria); Microsoft, Compton's and Grolier's encyclopedias; fast action games like Space Ace (Readysoft), Mad Dog McCree and Space Pirates (American Laser Games); a new genre of interactive movies, including Flash Traffic and Silent Steel (Tsunami/Sigma Designs).

Founded in 1982, Sigma entered the multimedia market in 1993 with products based on the MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) standard for compressing and decompressing digital audio and video signals. Since then, Sigma has been a driving force behind the advancement of the MPEG technology used in most of the multimedia products on the market today.

Sigma Designs' products include affordable MPEG video and audio encoding and decoding hardware and the industry's richest line of MPEG software titles.

All Sigma Designs' products are sold worldwide through a network of dealers, distributors, and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). For additional information, call 800/845-8086, 510/770-0100 or fax 510/770-2640.

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