Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Selects Sigma Designs' REALmagic DVD Decoder for PC Peripherals.FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 9, 1998-- REALmagic-Enabled Rewritable DVD DVD: see digital versatile disc. DVD in full digital video disc or digital versatile disc Type of optical disc. The DVD represents the second generation of compact-disc (CD) technology. Solutions Provide Optimal PC/TV Flexibility with Unequaled Performance, Quality, Economy Sigma Designs, Inc. (Nasdaq:SIGM), a leader in DVD decoder solutions for personal computers, today announced that Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. is selling a PC DVD/MPEG-2 decoder card in the Japanese market as a DVD playback solution for its Panasonic DVD-RAM A rewritable DVD disc endorsed by the DVD Forum. Using phase change technology, DVD-RAMs are like removable hard disks, and the media can be rewritten 100,000 times compared to 1,000 times for DVD-RW and DVD+RW. The first DVD-RAM drives with a capacity of 2.6GB (single sided) or 5. drive. The card uses Sigma's EM8300 REALmagic DVD/MPEG-2/MPEG-1 decoder IC. The REALmagic DVD decoder silicon and the DVD-RAM drive will be shown at the Panasonic booth (L 1014) in conjunction with Comdex 1998 in Las Vegas Las Vegas (läs vā`gəs), city (1990 pop. 258,295), seat of Clark co., S Nev.; inc. 1911. It is the largest city in Nevada and the center of one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the United States. November 16-20. Designed to leverage DVD's broadcast video and audio capabilities, the EM8300-enhanced PC cards deliver visual clarity equal to that of HDTV (High Definition TV) A set of digital television (DTV) standards that offer the highest resolution and sharpest picture. Although some HDTV sets are available in standard (rather square) screen sizes, the overwhelming majority of sets are wide screen, which eliminates and high-quality Dolby Digital A digital audio encoding system from Dolby used in movie and home theaters. First used in 1995, Dolby Digital employs Dolby's AC-3 (Audio Coding-3) coding and compression technology and is the standard for DVD-Video and HDTV. 5. AC-3 Surround Sound An audio recording and playback system that uses five or more channels plus a subwoofer channel. See 5.1 channel and 3D audio. . The decoder card can turn almost any Pentium-based PC into a DVD player with exceptionally smooth video playback for business demonstrations, interactive training/education, or entertainment applications. The REALmagic cards minimize the computer's 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. workload, providing a true multimedia experience. With full-screen NTSC/PAL TV output, users can play high-quality video on any standard TV. To provide customers with crystal clear, full-screen, full-motion DVD/MPEG-2 multimedia, video game, and movie playback performance, Sigma's EM8300 silicon for DVD decoding provides the highest-quality DVD playback solutions. "With its low dollar/Mbyte cost and exceptionally large capacity, DVD-RAM is quickly becoming a popular storage medium for a wide range of applications. Since it is well suited for DVD movies and DVD-ROM DVD-ROM: see digital versatile disc. A read-only DVD disc used to permanently store data files. DVD-ROM discs are widely used to distribute large software applications that exceed the capacity of a CD-ROM disc. title applications as well, our end customers have asked us to incorporate a DVD-MPEG decoder with our DVD-RAM product," commented Yukinori Okazaki, Engineering Manager of the Optical Disk Systems Division at Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. "We believe that Sigma Designs' REALmagic Hollywood Plus is one of the highest quality MPEG-2 decoders available in its class and can meet the expectation of our end customers." Hardware DVD/MPEG-2 Solution With a REALmagic DVD card, users of the Panasonic DVD-RAM drive in Japan not only have high-quality, full-screen images, but the hardware solution also uses less than 30 percent of the CPU's processing power. That means the system can be simultaneously used for other tasks. Matsushita Electric recently displayed a number of new products and concepts at the Japan Electronics Show '98 at Intex Osaka. The display featured consumer and industrial areas with the theme "Exciting Digital World." The consumer area included cutting-edge DVD products and a "Dream Theater." The industrial area featured a demonstration verifying the compatibility between DVD-RAM and DVD-ROM. Industry-Standard Rewritable DVD Businesses can use a DVD-RAM drive as a removable backup hard drive to back up a company server, archiving vital corporate data. The drive's high capacity and performance make it ideal for storing renderings, scanned photos, illustrations, and animated designs, as well as real-time videos, commercials, Web sites, and large data files. The rugged, removable media can also be used for low-cost distribution of large files such as catalogs, service manuals, databases, or training films. At home, people can use the drive with a video camera and video capture card See video capture board. to create home movies and document personal and household valuables. Sigma's DVD decoder card then enables absolutely stutterless DVD playback. Sigma's DVD decoder card will be supported locally by Sigma's Japanese distributor and partner, Vertex Link Corporation (Surugadai, Tokyo). Visit the Vertex Link website at http://www.vertexlink.co.jp Best known in the U.S. for its Panasonic brand, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :MC) is one of the world's leading producers of digital electronic products for consumer, business, and industrial use. Last year, the company's consolidated worldwide sales exceeded $59.7 billion. Visit the company's web site at http://www.panasonic.co.jp About Sigma Designs: Sigma Designs entered the multimedia market in 1993 with products based on the MPEG (Moving Pictures Experts Group) An ISO/ITU standard for compressing digital video. Pronounced "em-peg," it is the universal standard for digital terrestrial, cable and satellite TV, DVDs and digital video recorders (DVRs). (Moving Picture Experts Group (compression, standard, algorithm, file format, body) Moving Picture Experts Group - (MPEG, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29 WG11) An ISO committee that generates standards for digital video compression and audio. Also the name of their algorithms. ) standard for compressing and decompressing de·com·press v. de·com·pressed, de·com·press·ing, de·com·press·es v.tr. 1. To relieve of pressure or compression. 2. digital audio and video signals. Since then, Sigma has been a driving force behind advancement of the MPEG technology used in most multimedia products on the market today. Sigma Designs' products include affordable MPEG video and audio decoding hardware. All Sigma Designs products are sold worldwide through a network of dealers, distributors, and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). For additional information, call 800/845-8086 or 510/770-0100, fax 510/770-2640, or visit Sigma's web site at http://www.sigmadesigns.com Editors and Analysts: For further information, photographs, and interviews please contact Marken Communications. |
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