October 10, 2000 – Mediamatics, a wholly-owned subsidiary of National Semiconductor Corporation (NYSE:NSM), announced today that its DVDExpress software now fully utilizes DirectX VA, the new industry standard developed by Microsoft Corp. to provide full interoperability between MPEG decoders and the large number of different graphics chips. Consistent with Mediamatics’ role as the leader in the DVD player software market for personal computers, all future Mediamatics products also will comply with the new standard.
Until DirectX VA there has been no industry standard for DVD player decoding software to interface with the video acceleration capabilities found in PC video display cards. Instead, software developers needed to identify and write different code to communicate with the video acceleration capabilities found on the different video display cards. This often resulted in the delay of computer shipments. DirectX VA was developed as the standard application program interface (API) to reduce the possibility for programming errors and to reduce the time-to-market for PC manufacturers. The new API was developed in direct response to requests from the PC manufacturers.
As well as being necessary for DVD, the DirectX VA interface also provides a vital technology pillar for the Microsoft TV technology capabilities that are being added to future versions of the Windows operating system.
"Thanks to a large extent to the excellent decoding capabilities provided by DVD players, such as DVDExpress, many consumers are using their PCs as richly featured entertainment devices," said Dave Marsh, the Technical Evangelist for TV and Video at Microsoft. "Mediamatics has been heavily involved throughout the DirectX VA development process, and it's great to see that it has been so quick to start using the new PC standard in its DVD player."
"Supporting the Microsoft DirectX VA standard for video decoding was a crucial business decision for Mediamatics," said Raj Narayan, Director of Engineering at Mediamatics. "DVDExpress provides state-of-the-art software for PCs with DVD drives, and meeting the most up-to-date requirements is critical to maintaining and growing our market share."
Video acceleration is not a fundamental requirement for PC DVD players, but by utilizing the acceleration functions built in to graphics chips, the DVD player requires fewer computing resources, providing the best display quality and extending battery life in portable computers.
Applications that support DirectX VA will benefit computer makers, since they will not need to be upgraded when display hardware is enhanced or replaced.
DVDExpress can be found on computers made by Compaq, IBM, Toshiba, Sony, HP, ACER and others.
About Mediamatics
Mediamatics, a wholly owned subsidiary of National Semiconductor Corporation, delivers consumer quality digital video and audio hardware/software solutions for the consumer, PC and convergence markets. Mediamatics’ software and system expertise is integrated into the emerging home entertainment market comprising of entertainment PCs and DVD players. Its software products are licensed by Microsoft and major PC OEM manufacturers, making Mediamatics the world’s largest supplier of MPEG products. Visit Mediamatics on the World Wide Web at www.mediamatics.com.
