NVIDIA
today announced NVIDIA PureVideo technology, a
combination of hardware and software technologies designed to raise the
bar on the video capabilities of today’s desktop and notebook PCs.
The addition of PureVideo technology to the GeForce™ 6 Series of
graphics processing units (GPUs) allows for accelerated playback of MPEG-2
and high-definition (HD) video content at home-theater levels of quality,
resulting in crisp, vibrant and stutter-free video on any display.
Enabled by a dedicated, programmable video processing engine found on
the Company’s award-winning GeForce 6 Series GPUs, PureVideo technology
eliminates the trade-off in quality traditionally associated with video on
the PC by executing on an advanced set of algorithms typically found in
high-end consumer electronics devices. PureVideo technology
eliminates the need for separate hardware or chipsets and takes the load
off the PC’s multi-purpose central processing unit (CPU) to deliver to
consumers, high-quality video playback at resolutions up to 720p and
1080i.
“The personal computer has never been well-regarded for its abilities to
deliver high-quality video playback,” said Dan Vivoli, executive vice
president of marketing at NVIDIA. “The GeForce 6 Series with
PureVideo technology finally merges the flexibility of the PC platform
with the capabilities of high-end consumer electronics to give consumers
more choice over how they experience video.”
Recent analyst reports cite that the adoption of HD is on the rise,
with an estimated 60 million households expected to embrace
high-definition devices by 2008¹. Similarly, 33.5 million US households
are expected to adopt digital video recorder (DVR) technology in the same
time period².
Key features of PureVideo include:
- High-definition MPEG-2 Hardware Acceleration.
A dedicated 16-way vector processor enables smooth playback of HD
video with minimal CPU usage.
- WMV High-definition Hardware Acceleration.
Programmable support of the newest format enabled by Microsoft Windows
Media Player and Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 for fluid
playback of WMV and WMV HD content.
- High-quality Real-time Video Recording. An
advanced motion-estimation engine makes it possible to record in
real-time without a loss in quality.
- Spatial / Temporal Adaptive De-Interlacing.
Experience interlaced content from satellite, cable, and DVD feeds in
full detail and without jagged edges or artifacts.
- 3:2 Pull-down Correction and “Bad Edit” Correction³.
Restore video to its original 24fps film format to experience a
crystal clear picture, frame after frame.
- Flicker-free Multi-Stream Scaling.
High-quality 4-tap by 5-tap scaling maintains image detail, even when
scaling a small video to a large area of the screen.
- Display Gamma Correction. Automatic format
detection adjusts the color quality of video playback so that it is
not too dark, overly bright or washed out, regardless of the display.
To maximize the complete PureVideo experience, NVIDIA has released the
NVIDIA DVD Decoder. The software decoder—the first software decoder to
receive "Designed for Media Center" certification from Microsoft®—unleashes
the broad range of PureVideo technology features for DVD and recorded
video playback and works with both Windows® Media Player and Microsoft
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. The Company has also released an
update for its ForceWare™ software unified driver architecture to enable
the functionality of the PureVideo technology algorithms. For additional
information, or to download a free trial version of the NVIDIA DVD
Decoder, please visit www.nvidia.com.
“The programmability of the PureVideo engine gives us more
flexibility as a development platform as we are able to support key new
features designed to enhance video playback, such as motion estimation, to
deliver a competitive advantage to our products,” said Lewis Liaw,
president of Ulead Systems, North America. “With Ulead’s products and
NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series GPUs, consumers have a cost-effective solution for
creating high-quality video.”
