Alliance and Horizons deliver full-screen PC video; ProMotion hardware acceleration for high-quality TrueMotion S codec gives low-cost playback solution for multimedia PCs.SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 6, 1995--Horizons Technology and Alliance Semiconductor Monday announced an agreement to jointly optimize and promote motion video technologies for personal computers. At the Intermedia Intermedia - A hypertext system developed by a research group at IRIS (Brown University). multimedia trade show here, the companies will demonstrate full-screen, full-motion, 30 frames per second video playback using the Alliance ProMotion graphics accelerator chip and the TrueMotion S software codec. Alliance Semiconductor's ProMotion controllers bring a new generation of motion video performance to the PC, along with fast graphics acceleration for GUI (Graphical User Interface) A graphics-based user interface that incorporates movable windows, icons and a mouse. The ability to resize application windows and change style and size of fonts are the significant advantages of a GUI vs. a character-based interface. applications. ProMotion-3210 is the first low-cost Windows accelerator with a built-in hardware engine for popular motion video playback standards. TrueMotion S is the first high-quality, software-only video available across a range of platforms. It has been used in more than 100 CD titles for game players such as 3DO and Sega. Horizons Technology Inc. (HTI HTI Haiti (ISO Country code) HTI High Tech Institute HTI Hand Tools Institute HTI Hamilton Island, Queensland, Australia (Airport Code) HTI Horizontal Technology Integration ) is the exclusive licensee of the TrueMotion algorithm in the PC application market, while TrueMotion's original developer, The Duck Corporation, has retained rights for the game market. "TrueMotion S offers superb video playback quality and frame rates for PC games and educational titles," said Sid Agrawal, vice president of marketing for Alliance. "For PCs equipped with ProMotion-based graphics systems, smoother, richer accelerated motion video display completes the multimedia experience. Alliance's support for the TrueMotion codec reaffirms our commitment to providing the greatest breadth and depth of multimedia drivers in the industry for the ProMotion architecture." "Title developers have chosen TrueMotion S because of its flexibility, ease of implementation, scalability and high picture quality on a wide variety of platforms. With the addition of a ProMotion-based graphics card, playback of TrueMotion S files is greatly improved at any window size," said Cynthia Mordaunt, vice president of Horizons Technology. TrueMotion S Software Decoding TrueMotion S is a refinement of the original TrueMotion algorithm which required a dedicated video processor board to play video. With TrueMotion S, computers decode the video directly on the CPU CPU in full central processing unit Principal component of a digital computer, composed of a control unit, an instruction-decoding unit, and an arithmetic-logic unit. . Like the original TrueMotion codec, TrueMotion S is also an intraframe-only compression format, capable of handling editing tasks and "trick-plays" such as reverse and fast-forward. TrueMotion S is rapidly gaining acceptance as the outstanding alternative to coprocessor-reliant video algorithms. TrueMotion software-only video supports platforms including PCs running Video for Windows The name of Microsoft's first video playback implementation in Windows. Supporting the AVI movie format, Video for Windows (VfW) was installed separately in Windows 3.x, but was later built into Windows 95 and subsequent versions. , Quicktime for Windows 2.0, or Windows95; Macintosh computers running System 7 or better with Quicktime 2.0; and UNIX-based RISC RISC in full Reduced Instruction Set Computing Computer architecture that uses a limited number of instructions. RISC became popular in microprocessors in the 1980s. workstations. Recommended PC configuration is a 486/33 CPU or greater 4MB of RAM and a VLB/PCI display adapter with 16-bit or better color. While TrueMotion S excels at the best motion video display on the installed base of PC systems, HTI has also designed it to take advantage of low-cost motion video acceleration provided by ProMotion controllers. With upgraded ProMotion-based graphics cards, multimedia PC owners will see greatly enhanced video playback quality. ProMotion-3210 MMUI MMUI Multi Modal Paradigm User Interface Accelerator ProMotion-3210 is the first single-chip Windows accelerator with built-in hardware acceleration for motion video color space conversion Changing one type of color-encoded signal into another. Converting from RGB to YUV and back to RGB are common color space conversions when working with video formats (see YUV). Converting from the display color space (RGB) to the printer color space (CMYK) is another common example. and scaling. It is the first of a family of graphics + video MultiMedia User Interface (MMUI) accelerators from Alliance Semiconductor. ProMotion-3210 accelerates video applications written for Video for Windows, DCI, WinG, and other multimedia interfaces, as well as all home and business graphics applications under Microsoft Windows. ProMotion-3210 accelerates Windows displays up to 1600x1200 resolution at 8 bits per pixel (hardware, graphics) bits per pixel - (bpp) The number of bits of information stored per pixel of an image or displayed by a graphics adapter. The more bits there are, the more colours can be represented, but the more memory is required to store or display the image. , and up to 800x600 resolution at 24 bits per pixel truecolor. It offers PCI (1) (Payment Card Industry) See PCI DSS. (2) (Peripheral Component Interconnect) The most widely used I/O bus (peripheral bus). Local Bus or VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association, Milpitas, CA, www.vesa.org) A membership organization founded in 1989 that sets interface standards for the PC, workstation and computing environments. Note the following VESA standards following this entry. VLBus host interface, and supports 1 to 4 megabytes of DRAM memory. Even with just 1 megabyte of memory, it can accelerate full-screen, 1024x768 graphics and 30 frames per second video playback using TrueMotion S and other algorithms. Graphics cards based on ProMotion-3210 are available now. Company Backgrounds Horizons Technology, Inc. (HTI) is a software development and multimedia company headquartered in San Diego. Founded in 1977, HTI specializes in the development of multimedia applications and video compression software and services, and is the exclusive worldwide licensee of TrueMotion video used in desktop applications. HTI has more than 450 employees and other major offices located in Boston, and Alexandria, Va. HTI's European headquarters is located in the Netherlands. Alliance Semiconductor Corp., based in San Jose, Calif., is a leading worldwide supplier of high performance memories and related products. Alliance designs, develops, manufactures and markets CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) Pronounced "c-moss." The most widely used integrated circuit design. It is found in almost every electronic product from handheld devices to mainframes. VLSI VLSI: see integrated circuit. (1) (Very Large Scale Integration) Between 100,000 and one million transistors on a chip. See SSI, MSI, LSI and ULSI. (2) (VLSI Technology, Inc., Tempe, AZ, www.semiconductors. products using the latest manufacturing technologies, with feature sizes down to 0.5-micron. The company markets its high performance products to the desktop and portable computing, networking, telecommunications and instrumentation industries. Alliance Semiconductor's common stock is listed on NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on under the symbol ALSC ALSC Association for Library Service to Children ALSC Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation ALSC Afloat Logistics and Sealift Capability ALSC American Lumber Standards Committee, Inc. ALSC Advanced Logistics Systems Center (AFMC) . -0- Notes to Editors: The TrueMotion S software motion video algorithm and ProMotion-3210 MMUI accelerator will be on display at Intermedia booth number 952. ProMotion and the Alliance logo are trademarks of Alliance Semiconductor Corp. TrueMotion is a registered trademark of the Duck Corp. Macintosh is a registered trademark and Quicktime is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. Microsoft is a registered trademark and Windows and Windows95 are trademarks of Microsoft Corp. Pentium is a trademark of Intel Corp. Other trademarks are property of their respective holders. CONTACT: Horizons Technology Inc. Lisa Fisher, 619/277-7100 Fax 619/292-9439 or Alliance Semiconductor, San Jose Spencer Greene, 408/383-4900 Fax 408/383-4999 |
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