Suhit Gupta
09-20-2004, 10:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.ati.com/companyinfo/press/2004/4781.html' target='_blank'>http://www.ati.com/companyinfo/press/2004/4781.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Multimedia personal computers take a giant leap forward today, finally reaching the video quality levels associated with high-end $2000 consumer televisions. ATI Technologies Inc. is proud to announce and ship the THEATER™ 550 PRO video processor that delivers superb TV reception and Personal Video Recording (PVR) functionality for PCs through products such as add-in PC cards, motherboard-down solutions and notebook computers."</i><br /><br />Theater 550 Pro integrates five discrete functions into one powerful chip to create a “PVR-on-a-chip” that could revolutionize video quality for PCs. The features included are a next-gen 12-bit Video Decoder that features 3D Comb Filtering for NTSC and PAL and 5-line 2D Comb Filtering, a next-gen Hardware Video and Audio Encoder with Advanced Noise Reduction, PCI Express X1 and PCI interface on a single device, digital IF Demodulation that improves video quality and reduces the overall solution cost by eliminating the need for expensive tuners, and, worldwide multi-standard Audio Decoder. The chip is currently making its way to production. So products featuring it will be available from ATI and other manufacturers later this year. WOW! For those of you planning on building your own PVR and are still unsure about which video card to go with, I would seriously recommend waiting for this chip.