Diamond plots multimedia strategy; may cross paths with Creative Technology

Electronic News, Sept 5, 1994 by Reinhardt Krause

SUNNYVALE, CALIF.--Graphics accelerator board maker Diamond Computer Systems Inc. plans to roll out its first MPEG-based product in Q1, 1995 as part of a new product roadmap tied to a name change and hiring of engineers.

Now called Diamond Multimedia Systems, the 12-year-old company plans to move from its base in 2D graphics and sound-based products to digital video, 3D graphics, audio/telephony and other areas. Primarily a competitor to ATI, Number Nine and Matrox currently, Diamond hopes to butt heads directly with Creative Technology within a year, said Scotty Kim, product marketing manager.

Diamond, which recently brought on former Conner Peripheral executive William Schroeder as president and CEO, has ties to a number of chip makers. Some of those relationships--or new ones--are likely to be leveraged as the company seeks a transition into multimedia products.

Diamond has used Cirrus Logic's 16-bit 5426 and 5428 devices for its low-end SpeedStar Pro series of graphics accelerators; S3's 32-bit 801, 805 and 928 chips for its mid-range Stealth series (as well as Tseng's W32P); and Weitek's P9000 and P9100 controllers in the high-end Viper Pro. In addition, it has worked with Auravision for its motion-JPEG based VideoStar capture and playback cards and with Opti and Sierra Semiconductor for sound cards.

The company's move into multimedia began last week when it introduced multimedia upgrade kits for PC users, including double or quadspeed CD-ROM drives, 16-bit sound cards, and other accessories. Diamond sources its CD-ROM drives from Mitsumi and Sanyo; Mr. Kim said OEM prices for CD-ROM drives are now under $90. The sound cards are based on Yamaha's OPL-3 chip and is compatible with Creative's Sounder-Blaster platform.

Diamond, which expects to do a run rate of more than $200 million this year, currently holds between 30 and 40 percent of the graphics accelerator board market, Mr. Kim said. The company was until recently engineering-driven and often focused on introducing products with leading technology; Diamond, though, is now hoping to bring more marketing savvy to its operations. Mr. Kim acknowledged that Diamond is also hoping to capitalize on the woes of Media Vision; Media Vision recently filed for protection under Chapter 11 amid executive changes and layoffs.

While multimedia products appear to be a promising area for expansion, Diamond is still proceeding with caution, Mr. Kim said. For example, he said the market for video capture and playback cards is probably much more limited than what has existed for graphics and audio boards.

Diamond has been in discussions with Cirrus Logic and Weitek--asking both chip companies to support video acceleration in upcoming products, Mr. Kim said. As a hardware vendor, Diamond has an interest in providing acceleration for MPEG, as opposed to software-playback technology such as Indeo or Cinepak.

Still, Mr. Kim indicated that Diamond's solution--through its chip partners--is likely to be based on the display controller interface (DCI). Intel officials recently indicated that MPEG, Indeo and Cinepak and other algorithms can all be targeted through YUV color spaces in NTSC color systems.

"We will have some sort of MPEG solution that goes with a graphics kicker," Mr. Kim said. One of Diamond's chip partners, Cirrus Logic, has already licensed Compcore Multimedia's MPEG-1 core technology in upcoming products, while Weitek is said to be exploring such a move.

During the recent Silicon Valley Personal Computer conference in San Jose, Weitek officials indicated that the "DCI approach" has merit as a way to increase codec flexibility. Doug Green, Weitek's marketing manager, graphics products, said the company is running user test groups to determine what functionality to add to its devices. "We're simulating video clips to determine whether the cost added to the device is justified by the perceived increase in quality, he said, "You look carefully at adding any double-digit cost to any solution." He added that any solution for the home PC market would require a shared-memory approach.

Diamond also plans to introduce add-on boards based on a DSP platform at Spring Comdex next year, with products shipping later in 1995. Asked what attributes Diamond would perfer to see in a DSP-based multimedia Mr. Kim said: "flexibility, horsepower--bang for the buck, and ease in support."

Mr. Kim confirmed that Diamond has been in discussions with IBM over its Mwave DSP platform; Creative earlier this year licensed Spectron Microsystems' SPOX multi-tasking DSP operating system software for multimedia products (EN, April 4).

While IBM's initial Mwave products were not Sound-blaster-compatible and used software-based Wavetable synthesis--two features not to Diamond's liking--Mr. Kim indicated that discussions are continuing. Diamond is already a backer of the Power-PC platform; in addition, its graphics cards were also included in Motorola's reference platform for PowerPC-based motherboards (EN, Aug. 22).