Chip makers from Intel to AMD to TI and Samsung are pushing hard for the living room. Yesterday TechBoard looked at how video was the key theme for the consumer electronics show, CES, in Vegas this week. Now the chip guys are driving this home (pun intended) by saying that their future lies in powering the TV's and set top boxes of tomorrow with chips that will enable greater multimedia power, greater intelligence and greater interoperability.
And armed with their new strategy and new branding Intel is leading the charge. Their entertainment chip aptly named Viiv (rhymes with five or jive) will provide a platform of dual-core processors and chipsets designed to speed the handling of multimedia files in different formats and reproduce them in high-definition video and surround sound. It is appearing first in PC-like devices running Microsoft’s Windows Media Center software and AMD is developing its new Live! platform as an alternative for buyers of Media Center devices.
But the Viiv brand, Intel argues, will assure users of interoperability as content is exchanged between devices made by different manufacturers and Intel is in a unique position to help the consumer electronics industry achieve this.
Samsung and TI are hot on their tails. But with Intel going so aggressively for the living room entertainment market then Microsoft has to benefit in the short term. Now it's their turn to finally explain in user speak what these Media Center PC's of theirs actually do. Then more people might even buy one.
If not, the smart TV or the set top box or the games console or even the iPod might just muscle into the living room and overtake them as the device to drive our entertainment centers of tomorrow. He who does it all for us invisably and simply will ultimately win. Hey, now I'm sounding like an Apple fan. Woah!
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