Philips' new media processor family establishes new price and feature set benchmark
Nexperiatm pnx1500 combines media processing, network connectivity and display enhancement on a single chip
Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) today announced the NexperiaTM pnx1500 family of connected media processors. The family is the first to enable high-performance, multi-format media processing in a variety of low-cost consumer electronic appliances. The pnx1500 family will be the leading system solution for the next generation of connected digital versatile disk (DVD) players, personal video recorders (PVRs), progressive displays including liquid crystal display (LCD) televisions and wireless local area network (WLAN) devices.
With the explosion of different media formats driven by the Internet, the newest product in Philips' Nexperia portfolio offers compatibility with all leading video standards, including MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, DV, RealNetworks, and DivX-5. The pnx1500 can encode video into a variety of formats, including full-resolution MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, for recording onto hard disk drives, CD-RW or flash memory cards. For unrivalled video quality on progressive displays, the pnx1500 media processor includes a TV-enhancement processor, advanced LCD controller and motion-adaptive line-doubler. It also integrates a 10/100 Ethernet controller enabling media streaming over broadband networks.
"The Nexperia pnx1500 processor offers the flexibility and performance needed for Philips' line of StreamiumTM Internet-connected appliances," said Jean-Marc Matteini, general manager of the Internet A/V program, Philips Consumer Electronics. "With on-the-fly programmability and ability to handle emerging formats, it enables us to develop a single design that can be customized or upgraded to suit changing consumer demands."
"We're pleased to work with Philips, a leader in consumer electronics, to bring RealVideo® 9 to the pnx1500 family of connected media processors," said Dan Sheeran, vice president, RealNetworks, Inc. "RealVideo 9 offers near-DVD quality video at mainstream broadband rates. With the pnx1500 and RealVideo 9, consumer electronic manufacturers will be able to deliver value added video applications and content to consumers."
"With the Nexperia pnx1500, Philips is offering consumer electronic manufacturers a highly cost-effective streaming media solution," said Chris Day, senior marketing director media processing, Philips Semiconductors. "Its unique combination of media processing, network connectivity and display enhancement will ensure that the Philips' pnx1500 family will be at the heart of tomorrow's connected home."
The pnx1500 is powered by a new high-performance TriMediaTM CPU core with additional instructions for optimized MPEG video processing. Fabricated in a low-power 0.13-Micron process, power consumption is further reduced using Philips' patented V2F technology, making the pnx1500 suitable for battery-powered portable applications.
The pnx1500 is supported by a complete development package including hardware reference design, C-compiler, debugger, and extensive software codecs and applications software. Complete WLAN, PVR, DVD, video security, flash memory card recorder and Internet-radio solutions are available from Philips and its partners.
The first product from Philips' pnx1500 family of processors will begin general sampling in Q1 2003 and be in volume production in Q2 2003.
About Philips
Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands is one of the world's biggest electronics companies and Europe's largest, with sales of $ 28.8 billion (EUR 32.3 billion) in 2001. It is a global leader in color television sets, lighting, electric shavers, medical diagnostic imaging and patient monitoring, and one-chip TV products. Its 184,000 employees in more than 60 countries are active in the areas of lighting, consumer electronics, domestic appliances, components, semiconductors, and medical systems. Philips is quoted on the NYSE (symbol: PHG), London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and other stock exchanges. News from Philips is located at www.semiconductors.philips.com.
TriMedia is a registered trademark of TriMedia Technologies, Inc.
RealVideo is a registered trademark of RealNetworks, Inc.