Sigma Designs readies DIVX card

[KuroNeko]

Source www.heise.de/newsticker

Sigma Designs announced they would cooperate with DIVX in marketing and development. First fruit of this cooperation would be their new PC card "X" which would allow playback of DIVX and other MPEG4 content on PC.

Basically, that's what everyone's been doing now with the videooutput of their graphics card, but this card would of course offload the processor and in most cases offer vastly superior video-out quality (not everyone uses a Matrox card

I think the X card will be a demo to woo DVD player manufacturers into purchasing the Sigma Designs chip for integration in their players. No doubt that chip will have also MPEG1-2 and possibly Dolby Digital audio decoding also onboard (and perhaps some enhancements for progressive playback - the FLI2200 is a huge success for Faroudja, no doubt Sigma wants a piece of that cake too)

Cirrus Logic is also messing with a MPEG4 chip, so the Doc is right as usual, in very short time we'll be playing DIVX on our DVD decks

Neko

[Dr Mordrid]

And guess who is a member of the MPEG-4 Industry Forum?

DivXNetworks

Fraunhofer IIS, Improv (DSP designers), Amphion (chip maker) and DynaPel are also in there, so look for something interesting out of them as well.

Dr. Mordrid

[Dr Mordrid]

Here's another one for the MPEG-4 list: the Panasonic SV-AV10 D-Snap.

http://www.twomobile.com/content/859.php

It's a microscopic MPEG-4 still/video cam by Panasonic. Apparently with a 512 mb SD card it can shoot about 7 minutes of video.

Some sites are estimating a street price <$400 USD, but that doesn't include the 512mb card.

Interesting start.

Dr. Mordrid

[wkulecz]

I must be missing something.

First I've yet to see an MPEG4 of quality worth watching. Short clips are tolerable if it gets you thru some filesize or bandwidth limitations. But frankly I'd rather watch VHS SLP than any MPEG4 I've seen.

MPEG2 doesn't edit well. I don't see how higher compression of MPEG4 will do any better.

Most home videos suck because of lack of editing. This is not progress.

As to the $400 price, its not hard to find a MiniDV cam on sale at Fry's for only a bit more. Hi8s are regularly less.

--wally.

[Dr Mordrid]

This is the tip of an iceberg.

While this is a humble beginning it's the start of WM and/or MPEG-4 variants (like DivX Networks is producing) becoming major formats.

MPEG-4 itself has dozens more profiles than the low quality ones we're used to, some of which are offering lossless studio editing profiles for HD at up to 225 mbytes/s.

Some are even at bitrates that don't cause such a nosebleed

From the Microsoft side we have the impending theatrical release of a WindowsMedia "Corona" encoded feature. Here's the link;

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2002/Feb02/02-04WendigoPR.asp

This goes right along with the major DVD manufacturers licensing WM Corona for their decks chipsets. Audio will be first, video likely to follow.

Dr. mordrid

[KuroNeko]

Wally, I at first thought the same. I download a lot of anime episodes, fansubbed, before I buy the expensive Japanese DVDs. Also that way I get a translation.

In the beginning the quality was horrible, but it's been steadily improving, although the codecs have remained largely unchanged. I guess it takes a lot of trial and error to get the hang of it.

A friend gave me a copy of Shrek a few weeks ago. I've been thinking of buying this DVD, because of excellent reviews, but I've been disappointed so often in US animation, that I wanted a preview first. They used the old Divx codec, version 3 low motion. Squeezed the movie onto one single CD. Resolution was adapted so it would fit the widescreen format, I don't know the exact format but it was fullscreen, not a scaled-down version. That's over 1:30 hrs on a 700MB CD! And quality was superb! Just here and there some slight blocking in backgrounds (and that's on a PC monitor; on a TV this will even be less noticeable). I was really surprised. Like with MPEG2, I think source also is important; good DIVX are usually DVD (thus nicely prefiltered etc) source.

I'll be experimenting a lot more with it once I get my new PC-PVR up and running. Curious how it will work out for live TV (very noisy) sources.

BTW, Shrek rocks DVD underway. Although the ending was a bit cowardly by the makers...

Oh, Doc, I'm sure you already heard about the new codec "H.26L" the ITU and among other MS, are working on? MS promised working code end of year, but just saw a preview from a guy at work (dunno how he got the code). DIVX quality but 4-5x more compressed O_O Still glitchy though. Sure would be nice if this would be backwards compatible with MPEG4, otherwise we'd have to wait again to see this integrated in DVD players

Neko

[wkulecz]

Wow, I thought things were confusing enough now with MPEG1, MPEG2, VCD, SVCD, DV, WMV, etc.

So now all the bit rates from total crap not worth Emailing to better than anything I ever thought possible (225 mbyte/s, is this a typo or at 1.6+ Gbit/s a plan for fiber to the home :-) will be united.

Its all gonna magically work because its renamed MPEG4 and from Microsoft. Believe it when I see it.

OT:
Trying to get a USB 2.0 external hard drive to work in Win98, 2000 and XP to solve a problem of moving data amoung a motly assortment of computers that are not networked for security reasons. While looking for driver updates on microsoft.com, had to laugh when I ran across some marketing fluff calling USB "the digital equivalent of plugging in a lamp".


Obviously I've not seen any of the good MPEG4 stuff Kuro is talking about, doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but sounds exacly what RIAA and MPAA are trying to stamp out.

I think this kind of thing will invoke the "Osborne Effect" for video.

For you youngsters, the "Osborne Effect" refers to the then hot selling "Osborne I" PC being killed off by early announcements of great features in the "Osborne II" that couldn't be delivered before Osborne ran out of money when people stopped buying the Osborne I waiting instead for version II.

--wally.

[Dr Mordrid]

That 225 mbytes/s was no typo.

ISO MPEG-4 is also not from Microsoft. It's spec was created by a working group and is supported by the MPEG-4 Industry Forum.

ISO MPEG-4 is totally different than that bastardized mess Microsoft was using. It even supports multiple layers of 2D and 3D objects in the video stream and interactivity. Reading the whole spec is enough to give you a migrane

What Microsoft IS responsible for is the Windows Media Corona technology. I haven't seen an example yet, but most who have are very impressed. We'll see how the movie release goes.

RIAA and MPAA are happy with ISO MPEG-4 because it now incorporates content protection....at least until the hackers get 'hold of it

Dr. Mordrid