Sigma Designs, a leader in digital media processing for consumer appliances, recently announced that several new IP video appliances from multiple vendors, based on Sigma's decoder chips, will enter the market over the next six months.
IP video appliances represent a relatively new class of products designed to support IP video streaming, which is set to take off over the next year as more devices and larger manufacturers enter the market.
Several companies from Asia are preparing new IP video appliances to enter the market beginning this fall. The companies include Lenovo Consume PC (formerly Legend), Vertex Link, Beijing Golden Yuxing Electronics and Technology Co., Ltd., and Shenzhen Tsinghua Tongfang. In the next six months, an increasing number of larger players in the industry are gearing up to provide both categories of IP video solutions to the global mass market. Sigma Designs is the dominant supplier of media processors for IP video appliances, and will be expanding its product-line during this period to add increased CPU performance and additional hardware features. "Lenovo's products provide our customers with enhanced entertainment benefits and advanced features," said Jiang Shan, senior manager, Lenovo Consume PC. "We continue to be successful, by working with companies like Sigma, who provide real, complete solutions. This in turn presents our valued customers with a seamless digital experience."
"Our customers recognize the benefits of using our MediaWiz product," said Goro Morita, president and CEO of Vertex Link Corporation, Japan. "A key reason why our MediaWiz product is thriving is due to our use of Sigma's EM8551 chip. Sigma's chip provides support for complete digital video, audio, and photo formats, including an MPEG-4 solution, which we needed, as well as a low cost single chip SoC advantage that pushed us ahead of the competition."
The types of architecture and features in these new boxes, powered by Sigma decoder chips, include highly-integrated solutions for MPEG-4 and MPEG-2. Other unique features include digital and component video outputs with optional scaling up to HDTV resolution, video over IP, support for DVI/HDCP or LCD displays and support for external encoders and networking chips. A wide variety of media types are supported, accessible through a powerful navigation engine.
"Working with Sigma's IP video solutions is a natural progression of our business," said Zhu Jiang, VP, Beijing Golden Yuxing Electronics and Technology Co., Ltd. "Our Broadband Entertainment Player utilizes Sigma's EM8550 chip, by providing support for MPEG-4 and a single chip SoC advantage for our customers. Sigma recognizes market trends and seizes on them to provide companies like ourselves the competitive edge and strong features which enable us to share with our consumer market."
