Digital TVs with inbuilt HD tuners are so last year… tomorrow’s digital TV will include a hard drive with network storage and the ability to play back DivX movies — if AMD gets its way.
Chipmaker AMD might not exactly be kicking Intel’s arse in the desktop PC space at the moment, but it does have one trick up its sleeve: DivX certified CPUs targeted at your digital TV.
The new “Xilleon” CPU (queue predictable yet funny Austin Powers jokes about AMD hoping to make “one xilleon dollars”) is a system-on-a-chip design that include a MIPS CPU, graphics, video, audio, USB, EIDE, PCI, memory controller, and more.
All a digital TV manufacturer has to add, according to AMD, is a tuner, memory, and, if desired, a modem.
“Digital televisions are an increasingly important element of the ‘three screens’ that define the digital media experience today—the PC, the television and the mobile device, and we believe our agreement with AMD will help improve the media experience for consumers,” said Kevin Hell, CEO of DivX Inc, in a statement.
It’s not clear whether AMD has included specific technology in the Xilleon CPUs to enable DivX playback, or has simply had them certified by DivX as being powerful enough to support DivX playback, though the wording of the press release suggests the latter.
“The two companies will work together to achieve DivX Certification for specific AMD Xilleon processors. Products that bear the DivX Certified® logo have undergone a rigorous testing program to ensure a high-quality DivX media experience, including reliable video playback, interoperability with other DivX Certified devices and the visual quality users expect from DivX,” the two companies said.
Source : APCMag.com