1998-09-14 , E/IC-1027/59
Product News From Philips Semiconductors

Philips Semiconductors announced today the world's first single-supplier hardware and software solution for WavePhore Inc.'s free WaveTop data broadcast service. This complete kit offers seamless integration between a Philips' RF tuner, IC capture chipset, software drivers and the WaveTop application software, allowing simple OEM development of WaveTop-enabled PCI add-on cards. This minimizes development risk and time-to-market for manufacturers entering the rapidly expanding market for next generation, highly-integrated PC-TV cards.

WaveTop allows computers equipped with a TV tuner card to receive, decode and cache thousands of HTML pages, without the bottleneck of the Internet or tying up a phone line. "Providing new types of TV-based functionality on the PC is a new application area with massive growth potential," said Günther Dengel, Managing Director of Philips Consumer Systems Business Unit. "In particular, Webcast applications like WaveTop are emerging rapidly. By optimizing the DPCT7146 to run WaveTop, we are delivering a complete solution which dramatically simplifies development, as manufacturers need only deal with a single supplier who has an established reputation in this field."

The kit includes software from WavePhore Inc. with Philips Semiconductors' DPCT7146 PCI-based TV-capture demo card with on-board Philips' tuner, along with Philips Semiconductors' comprehensive low level software drivers for Windows 3.1/95/NT and debugger. It has been specifically designed for decoding and displaying data embedded in the unseen portion of the TV signal, the Vertical Blanking Interval (VBI). This data can range from existing services such as teletext and Intercast, as well as emerging new internet broadcast services or 'Webcasts' such as WaveTop. In addition, this flexible kit can be used to develop other advanced PC-TV functions such as multistandard TV reception, live video capture, instant-access teletext and very low-cost videoconferencing.

The card is based on Philips Semiconductors' well-known SAA711X series of digital video decoders and the multimedia SAA7146A PCI Media Streaming Engine. Already widely used by manufacturers of video capture boards, these proven ICs draw on Philips Semiconductors' acknowledged digital video processing expertise. The  SAA7111A and SAA7112 are true worldwide multistandard decoders, tightly locking to and accurately decoding S-video and CVBS for all PAL, NTSC and SECAM video streams, providing solid, stable and accurate video decoding.

The  SAA7146A features an advanced dual bi-directional scaler architecture, including very high quality multi-tap filtered scaling. It also provides flexible interconnection with a wide array of multimedia peripherals including MPEG2 and motion JPEG decoders and encoders, audio CODECs, VSB and QAM demodulators, and stereo sound processors.

WaveTop is the first free, advertising-supported, modem-less nationwide US data broadcast system to deliver multimedia content to broadcast-ready PCs in the home. Using a simple browser interface, users interact with automatically-downloaded information, entertainment and software. Philips Semiconductors is committed to support WaveTop and other emerging Webcast technologies and standards, both now and in the future and to this end, is working closely with Webcast developers, content providers and the PC industry.

This complete kit is competitively priced at about US$ 800, and is available now from Philips Semiconductors.

Philips Semiconductors, a division of Royal Philips Electronics, headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, is the ninth largest semiconductor supplier in the world and the third largest supplier of discretes in the world. Philips Semiconductors' innovations in digital audio, video, and mobile technology position the company as a leader in the consumer, multimedia and wireless communications markets. Sales offices are located in all major markets around the world and are supported by systems labs.