Sigma entry widens multimedia presence

Electronic News, July 15, 1996 by Andrew MacLellan

Fremont, Calif.--MPEG video provider Sigma Designs, emboldened by its recent merger with 2-D/3-D graphics developer Active Design (EN, May 27), will tomorrow broaden its presence in the multimedia market with the introduction of the company's first graphics/video accelerator, the REALmagic64/GX.

Based on Sigma's flagship REALmagic product line, the latest version is a 64-bit engine which the company claims will outperform competitor S3's Trio64V accelerator by 20 percent. The new device derives its speed by carefully partitioning graphics and video playback functions between hardware acceleration and CPU processing, and will ship with Sigma's CD Station and a complete set of DirectX acceleration and software MPEG drivers.

The REALmagic line, which debuted in 1993 in hardware MPEG encoding applications, has undergone change in its subsequent two generations, but none as dramatic as the 64/GX accelerator.

Sigma's market entry also underscores a trend set by a number of companies with one or more multimedia elements who are moving swiftly to corral the requisite 2-D/3-D graphics, video, audio, DVD, fax/modem or telephony technology needed to compete in the broadly defined multimedia arena.

"The reason we got into the graphics business is because we recognized that graphics is a dominant piece of real estate on the PC architecture," said Prem Talreja, Sigma's VP of marketing. "We need to be in that market if we're going to influence how digital video and graphics will play together. The 3-D market and the general multimedia environment is going to be an area of great opportunity."

Available for $18 in 10,000-unit quantities, the REALmagic64/GX plays MPEG software titles and Video CD movies at 30 frames-per-second. The device features a 64-bit VGA accelerator with integrated RAMDAC for support of 24-bit true color and offers both horizontal and vertical video scaling with linear X-Y interpolation to enable playback of interactive multimedia applications with MPEG video content.

"Our key strength is in graphics and video blending," said Mr. Talreja. "We don't see a company out there in graphics and video. The industries kind of operate at arms length from one another, and we think with our video expertise we can get into a lucrative market."