BridgeCo Upgrades Popular Silicon and Firmware Platform for Firewire 1394 Enabled Audio Devices; Daisy Chain Capability Expands on Industry Standard Chipset.SAN FRANCISCO San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden -- BridgeCo (www.bridgeco.net), a leading provider of wired and wireless digital home entertainment networking solutions, announced an "enhanced" version of its popular DM1000 Firewire(TM) solution at the Audio Engineering Society (AES) conference today. The new DM1000E dramatically increases the number of audio channels available to professional and amateur musicians who use Firewire to record, mix and play-back their creativity. By implementing an enhanced daisy chain Connected in series, one after the other. Transmitted signals go to the first device, then to the second and so on.  A SCSI Daisy Chain Both internal and external SCSI devices are daisy chained together. capability, the new DM1000E enables BridgeCo enabled devices to be linked together seamlessly, mixing channels from multiple systems together, utilizing the full bus bandwidth for maximum channel count. In conjunction with the new DM1000E audio processor, BridgeCo will ship an upgrade to their advanced BeBoB(TM) software platform that both expands flexibility and simplifies the learning curve in system configuration. Building upon years of customer feedback and system integration field experience, the new BeBoB 2.5 SDK (Software Developer's Kit) See developer's toolkit and Windows SDK. SDK - Software Developers Kit (or "Software Development Kit"). (software developers kit) enables audio product developers to get to market quickly, without the need to write complex drivers and software for their Firewire enabled products. "BridgeCo's Firewire platform has become an industry standard for cost-effective Firewire enabled audio products," explains Bob Tudor, President of SaneWave, an award winning product engineering company that has designed many BridgeCo enabled audio products for companies worldwide. "BridgeCo's advanced C++ architecture is a refreshing change from the software environments we see in other embedded solutions. The BridgeCo platform clearly reflects more than two years of field proven drivers, low latency Low latency allows human-unnoticeable delays between an input being processed and the corresponding output providing real time characteristics. This can be especially important for internet connections utilizing services such as online gaming and VOIP - VOIP is not as important as capability, and 'driverless' Mac OS X support. SaneWave believes it is the best solution for 1394 available today. This upgrade makes it simple to control your entire product operations, including knobs, LEDs, metering, motor faders, and even DSP (1) (Digital Signal Processor) A special-purpose CPU used for digital signal processing applications (see definition #2 below). It provides ultra-fast instruction sequences, such as shift and add, and multiply and add, which are commonly used in math-intensive , eliminating the need for additional processors in the system design, reducing the overall system cost to our clients. We're excited to build upon our past successes with BridgeCo, and have already started using this second generation chipset in our new designs." Breakout boxes, the most common type of 1394 product, enable musicians to combine signals from multiple instruments, microphones, sample clips and other audio sources, and transfer them to a computer using a single Firewire (IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, New York, www.ieee.org) A membership organization that includes engineers, scientists and students in electronics and allied fields. 1394) serial interface. Once audio tracks are recorded and stored on a computer, they can be edited, arranged and played-back to complete a total musical or audio experience. "Our OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) The rebranding of equipment and selling it. The term initially referred to the company that made the products (the "original" manufacturer), but eventually became widely used to refer to the organization that buys the products and customers tell us that musicians are demanding more discrete inputs and daisy-chained multi-box systems," said BridgeCo CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. Angelo Ugge. "We enhanced the DM1000E so their customers can access the maximum number of inputs available, while allowing them to connect multiple BridgeCo enabled products to work as a system in their studio environment. Now artists can focus on the music, and less on product incompatibilities, channel count, and driver configuration issues found in competing 1394 solutions." More than a dozen breakout box products from nine OEMs have been developed based on BridgeCo hardware / firmware platforms since 2002. BridgeCo's robust and proven Firewire solution has enabled the development of products targeted at professional musicians, as well as breakout boxes for the consumer audio market that are priced below US$200. Products built on BridgeCo's BeBoB platform have won numerous awards from leading audio magazines worldwide. The BeBoB 2.5 Platform The BeBoB 2.5 platform combines BridgeCo's DM1000 or DM1000E processor and all of the required software to build a complete Firewire audio product. The DM1000 supports limited daisy chain capability, while the DM1000E supports multiple daisy-chained systems. By eliminating the need for multiple chips and expensive general purpose DSP devices, BeBoB 2.5 enables OEMs to significantly reduce the retail price of their products. And by integrating powerful DSP capabilities, the BeBoB 2.5 solution provides low-latency mixing, which allows users to record new tracks while simultaneously playing back previously recorded ones. BridgeCo's BeBoB 2.5 platform includes a proprietary ARM-based DSP processor, an RTOS (1) (RealTime Operating System) An operating system designed for use in a real time computer system. See real time system, embedded system, process control and OS-9. , and a comprehensive application software stack (1) A stack that is implemented in memory rather than in hardware registers. See stack. (2) A generic reference to a set of system programs or a set of application programs that form a complete system. See stack. that allows BridgeCo's OEM customers to significantly accelerate their time-to-market. The BridgeCo platform interfaces directly to 1394 PHY See physical layer and physical. chips, and incorporates multiple digital and analog inputs and outputs that connect to microphones, loudspeakers, musical instruments and MIDI devices. BridgeCo provides driver support for Mac OS X and Windows XP The previous client version of Windows. XP was a major upgrade to the client version of Windows 2000 with numerous changes to the user interface. XP improved support for gaming, digital photography, instant messaging, wireless networking and sharing connections to the Internet. computers. Availability The DM1000E is currently available in sample quantities; production quantities will be available in 1Q05. The DM1000 continues to be available in production quantities. The BeBoB 2.5 software stack and SDK will be available for download by mid-November. Please visit www.bridgeco.net for additional product information. About BridgeCo BridgeCo is a pioneer of digital entertainment networking solutions. Its BeBoB (BridgeCo enabled Breakout Box) is a highly integrated platform that delivers cost-effective audio capture and mixing solutions to musicians and content creators. The company's Entertainment Network Adapters(TM) (ENAs) are the world's most comprehensive, cost-effective and highly integrated silicon and software platforms for connecting Internet media sources and PCs to consumer electronics throughout the home. BridgeCo ENAs are used in a wide range of innovative and legacy products produced by the multi-billion dollar global consumer electronics industry, including Wireless Audio Adapters, Audio/Video receivers, DVD players, music instruments and breakout boxes. Underlying all BridgeCo solutions are proprietary, integrated semiconductor and software technologies that network PCs to CE devices via widely-used standards and protocols for network and signal processing See DSP. , including IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 1394, UPnP, WiFi, and DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) A coalition of computer and consumer electronics companies that was formed to ensure interoperability in home networks. . BridgeCo is an ISO (1) See ISO speed. (2) (International Organization for Standardization, Geneva, Switzerland, www.iso.ch) An organization that sets international standards, founded in 1946. The U.S. member body is ANSI. 9001-certified company based in Zurich, Switzerland. Its key investors include Fidelity Ventures Fidelity Ventures is the venture capital arm of Fidelity Investments. Based in Boston and London, Fidelity Ventures invests in emerging technology companies in North America and Europe. , Benchmark Capital, Earlybird, Infineon Ventures, and Intel Capital. For more information, please visit www.bridgeco.net. All trademarks and service marks are the properties of their respective owners. |
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