Lasse Penttinen
30 Aug 2002 4:49
If I remember correctly, KiSS was one of these 1st generation MP3/DVD hybrid players to hit the european market. Now they have annouced that an MPEG-4/DivX supporting players are coming up. The MPEG-4 codec is provided by Sigma Designs, that was recently accused of open source GPL license abuse.
MILPITAS, Calif.—August 28, 2002—Sigma Designs (Nasdaq: SIGM), a leader in IP video streaming solutions, and KiSS Technology, a leading European vendor of DVD and DVB products, jointly announced an agreement to use Sigma’s EM8500 progressive DVD decoder chip in a new line of advanced DVD players. This new generation of DVD player goes beyond the bounds of a simple plug-and-play appliance, enabling consumers to play downloaded content, in several formats including MPEG-4, and view them on their television in superior quality.
About MPEG-4 in DVD Players
MPEG-4 is the latest digital video compression standard, enabling content developers to create sophisticated programs containing audio, video, text, graphics and interactivity. The object-oriented environment of MPEG-4
provides for complex scene compression at low bit rates with correspondingly small file sizes, making it ideal for either lower cost or higher capacity storage. Moving forward, MPEG-4 will make its way into all forms of set-top appliances, including digital cable systems, media gateways, video endpoints and now consumer DVD players.
Price-driven consumers are poised to embrace this advantage and record up to two-hour, full-length movies on low cost CDs. This segment may include downloaded content available through DivXNetworks (tm) or user-created content, such as the output from Panasonic’s new MPEG-4 Digital Palmcorder® MultiCam™ Camcorders. The premium user, seeking the benefits of high resolution viewing, is set to embrace the upcoming adoption by the DVD Forum of an MPEG-4 based standard for high definition DVD. Both segments will also benefit from future content that employs rich, object-based interactive capabilities.
Kiss-technology.com