Zoran, C-Cube back Intel graphics IC

Electronic News, Feb 23, 1998

San Jose, Calif.--Less than a week after Intel's introduction of its i740 2-D/3-D graphics accelerator, support for the chip has come out in full force. Among the supporters: DVD (digital video disc) suppliers Zoran and C-Cube Microsystems who, at the Intel Developer's Forum here last week, introduced DVD products that support Intel's new graphics engine.

C-Cube has developed a DVD daughter card reference design based on the company's Ziva DVD decoder targeted specifically as a glueless interface for i740 graphics boards. Dubbed the Chelsea-I, the daughter card allows OEMs to offer hardware DVD performance at less than half the cost of previous implementations, C-Cube said.

"The daughter card snaps on the i740 graphics platform and any motherboard or add-in card can support the daughter card," said Clint Chao, senior director of marketing for the PC/codec division of C-Cube. "We believe this is going to drive the demand for DVD in PCs more than anything has yet to date. We believe the market is ready and people are ready to have an inexpensive DVD solution that delivers the superior performance and video quality that DVD promises."

Mr. Chao said C-Cube is in the process of discussing similar relationships with other graphics vendors including ATI Technologies and Nvidia. He added the industry should expect to see other daughter cards for other graphics engines later this year. Diamond Multimedia Systems, AUSTek and Real3D have already adopted the Chelsea-I daughter cards and add-in boards to interface to their i740 based products. The daughter card is said to cut the price tag of a normal DVD PCI or daughter card by at least half. At the developers forum, C-Cube said the price would more than likely be in the $30 to $40 range for OEMs, depending on the quantity.

Mr. Chao said one of the primary bottlenecks to DVD has been the copy protection area, where Hollywood companies try to sustain protection for their movies while PC vendors are trying to proliferate DVD in their systems. Now--with content scramble system (CSS) in all DVDs--and with the industry rallying around tamper-proof technology standards, these developments should solidify the position of DVD in PCs, he said.

Meanwhile, Zoran has also signed an agreement with Intel to deliver a daughter card reference design that adds hardware DVD capabilities to the i740 graphics processor based on the company's Vaddis DVD decoder and the Zoran softDVD navigator. Zoran boasts it is able to ship the daughter card for a bill of materials of less than $30 to PC OEMs.

Dubbed the Vaddis4VMI, the daughter card reference design uses only the Vaddis decoder, a single 16-megabit SDRAM and a 27MHz-clock oscillator to generate the DVD offerings on a PC, the company said.

"We believe the availability of Zoran's Vaddis4VMI in conjunction with the Intel740 will accelerate the incorporation of hardware DVD into the PC environment," said Dr. Levy Gerzberg, president and CEO of Zoran. The daughter card is initially targeted for Intel 740 graphics processors based on PCI and AGP graphics cards. However, it may also branch into other graphics engine applications during the year. VMI provides a direct bi-directional high bandwidth connection for both DVD data and video from the decoder to the graphics controller. The card also includes the softDVD navigator that ostensibly allows OEMs to have a unified user interface spanning their product line from hardware DVD to software decoding.