ZORAN SHIPS INDUSTRY'S FIRST SINGLE CHIP PROGRESSIVE SCAN DVD MULTIMEDIA PROCESSOR WITH 6 VIDEO DACS.

Zoran Corporation (Nasdaq: ZRAN), a provider of digital solutions-on-a-chip for applications in the growing multimedia and consumer electronics markets, has announced that the Vaddis V, an advanced DVD Multimedia Processor, is shipping in production quantities to major DVD player manufacturers.

The Vaddis V is the industry's first single-chip DVD processor IC to ship with DVD-Audio and 6-video-DAC Progressive Scan Output, raising the bar for both image clarity and for video output flexibility. Zoran's high-quality progressive scan doubles the vertical resolution for sharper images, especially apparent in fast motion scenes. It also allows for simultaneous S-video, composite and component outputs. The Vaddis V's flexible video processor delivers a Home Entertainment Platform that lets consumers manage DVD playback, television programming, and web browsing simultaneously in the comfort of their living room from their DVD player. The Vaddis V's JPEG display capabilities allow consumers to playback pictures from digital cameras via the DVD player and view them on their television, promoting the convergence of DVD and digital camera technologies.

"With over twice the programmable performance of competing chips, the Vaddis V provides a powerful platform for Zoran OEM customers to develop their DVD players into true Home Entertainment Servers with a wide range of functions and controls. Its low power consumption allows many of the same features to be incorporated into portable players that can play 2 movies on a single battery," said Michael L. Wood, VP and General Manager of Zoran's Home Entertainment Division. "We also deliver our SiliconSoftware libraries with award winning audio algorithms from Zoran partners like Dolby, Planetweb and Spatializer."

"We've worked with Zoran since the early '90s to help them deliver the best audio quality in their single-chip products. The latest version of Zoran's SiliconSoftware developed for the Vaddis V DVD Multimedia Processor brings new audio capabilities to the listener via their DVD platform that delivers the latest DVD-Audio standard," said Richard Hockenbrock, Vice President, Licensing Operations, Dolby Laboratories.

"Zoran's Vaddis V brings unprecedented power to the consumer DVD platform, enabling optimized performance with Planetweb's Internet and application software such as our Digital Photo Manager, Digital Audio Jukebox, Data-Streamer and instant messaging package," said Ken Soohoo, President and CEO of Planetweb.

"The Vaddis V's powerful 32-bit DSP delivers the best performance for our audio enhancement solutions, including Spatializer N-2-2, the de facto standard for virtual surround on the DVD platform," said Henry R. Mandell, Chairman and CEO at Spatializer Audio Laboratories. "We are honored to be associated with the launch of Zoran's outstanding new DVD processor."

Web browsing and Internet communications are powered on the Vaddis V by the embedded CPU and hardware accelerators, including an on-chip graphics accelerator and Audio DSP. Graphics and text operations off-load the CPU for responsive Internet browsing. The Vaddis V's audio processing DSP is a full 135 mips engine supporting the DVD-Audio standard, Dolby Digital, Dolby Headphone, AAC, MPEG Audio Layers 2 & 3 compressed digital audio, and Spatializer's Virtual Surround Sound among others.

As Zoran's fifth generation DVD system-on-a-chip, the Vaddis V has been optimized for Universal DVD Players with DVD-Audio and DVD-Video capability. The Vaddis V supports Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP), Linear PCM (LPCM), and Watermarking for DVD-Audio players with up to 192 kHz sampling and 24-bit resolution.

Using the on-chip hardware accelerated image decoding, the Vaddis V supports JPEG image browsing from SmartMedia and Secure Digital flash memory cards, and CD-ROM. With a vast array of trick modes including smooth fast forward with audio playback, real-time reverse playback, and Zoran's proprietary video scaling, ZoranZoom, manufacturers using the Vaddis V can deliver the ultimate DVD-Video experience to the consumer.

The Vaddis V is well suited for emerging digital audio and video applications. With its 135 mips Audio DSP, it is not only capable of decoding, but it can also encode audio streams into Dolby Digital, AAC, and MPEG Audio Layers 2 & 3 compressed digital audio.

The Vaddis V is capable of playing DVD discs recorded in most consumer formats and supports the leading Audio and Video standards and formats including: DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, DVD-RW, DVD-RAM, SVCD, CVD, VCD, CD-DA, and CD-ROM. Other leading audio formats supported include: DTS Decoding; Dolby Digital, Dolby Headphone, Dolby ProLogic, MPEG Layers 1 and 2, MPEG-2 Multichannel, Karaoke, and 3D Audio.

Supported copy protection functions include: Copy Protection for Pre-recorded Media (CPPM) and Copy Protection for Recordable Media (CPRM). Flexible ports enable direct interfacing with the front panel, the infrared sensor, multiple drive types (ATAPI, A/V, UDE, S2B), and an MPEG encoder.