NEC SELECTS SIGMA'S MPEG DECODER CHIPS FOR NEW MULTIMEDIA CONSUMER PCS.Sigma Designs (Nasdaq:SIGM), has announced that NEC (NEC Corporation, Tokyo, www.nec.com, www.necus.com) An electronics conglomerate known in the U.S. for its monitors. In Japan, it had the lion's share of the PC market until the late 1990s (see PC 98). NEC was founded in Tokyo in 1899 as Nippon Electric Company, Ltd. Corporation has selected Sigma's MPEG decoder Software or hardware that decompresses and renders MPEG-encoded data. Because MPEG uses lossy compression, the decoded images are not 100% identical to the original. In most cases however, the differences are not easily detectable. See MPEG. EM8470 for incorporation into its new VALUESTAR T series of multimedia consumer PCs. NEC has already placed an initial production order to support shipments of its new product line starting in May 2002. "We are excited to introduce our new VALUESTAR products, which offer many ground-breaking features for consumer entertainment," said Mr. Kazunori Muraki, general manager of NEC CustomTechnica, Ltd. "The addition of Sigma's MPEG decoders will provide the type of high-quality video output that our customers have come to expect." Sigma's EM8470 -- a featured hardware component in NEC's new product -- supports video playback on the television for the new VALUESTAR T products and is envisioned for use with a broad range of video applications. As a highly integrated decoder chip, Sigma's EM8470 is capable of decoding de·code tr.v. de·cod·ed, de·cod·ing, de·codes 1. To convert from code into plain text. 2. To convert from a scrambled electronic signal into an interpretable one. 3. MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4 video content, 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. , MPEG-1 Layers 1 and 2, AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) An audio compression technology that is part of the MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 standards. AAC, especially MPEG-4 AAC, provides greater compression and better sound quality than MP3, which also came out of the MPEG standard. and CELP (Code Excited Linear Predictive) A speech compression method that achieves high compression ratios along with toll quality audio. LD-CELP (Low-Delay CELP) provides near toll quality audio by using a smaller sample size that is processed faster, resulting in audio content as well as complete output formatting for TV display (though not all these features are supported on NEC's new products). "NEC's new multimedia consumer PC products cuts new ground between traditional personal computers and consumer interactive set-top appliances," said Ken Lowe, vice president of business development at Sigma Designs. "Sigma is enthusiastic about working with NEC and providing our third generation MPEG decoder chips to support top quality interactive video features for TV viewing." |
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