Posted September 30, 2008 08:17 AM by Ben Williams
Today while attending CEATEC Japan, I had the opportunity to stop by the Sigma Designs suite at the beautiful Manhattan Hotel located just outside of Tokyo. Heading up product demonstrations at CEATEC, is Blu-ray.com's renowned insider Keith Jack, Director of Product Marketing for Sigma Designs. Mr. Jack was kind enough to walk me through a few product demonstrations of Sigma's award winning SoC (System-on-a-Chip) products. For those not aware of Sigma's role in the Blu-ray world, Sigma designs and manufactures specialized fabricated Blu-ray platforms that big-name consumer electronics manufacturers use to build their Blu-ray players. Sigma's products act as a motherboard to the overall Blu-ray platform and feature proprietary Sigma processors. Sigma's designs have appeared in top tier products from Sony, Pioneer and Panasonic as well as scores of Chinese manufacturers.
On the new product front, Sigma has just unveiled their new SMP8644 SoC design. This new design offers improved performance over previous generation Blu-ray SoC offerings. In addition to supporting flexibility for an almost infinite rage of audio options, the SMP8644 is poised to lead the industry in disc loading times as well as picture quality. Mr. Jack demonstrated the 8644's 43 second load times - - on par with that of the previously unrivaled PS3. This already lightning-fast load time can be improved upon as faster BD drives are made available. In addition, Sigma estimates a further 10-20% improvement in load times as firmware is optimized for the 8644. Equally impressive are the 8644's Java graphics abilities. As many Blu-ray users have noticed, menus and other Java-based graphics are sometimes handled differently and with a measured degree of success by competing Blu-ray players. This should prove to a problem relegated to the past with Sigma's new design as Java graphics and menus are rendered with speed, accuracy and ease of use.
Sigma Design's New SMP8644 Blu-ray SoC
Sigma is also demonstrating its VXP Image Processing solution at CEATEC. This revolutionary package offers the highest quality image scaling and deinterlacing along with a suite of image enhancement features. This technology is already present in many high-end products and should find its way to Blu-ray players in the future.
Sigma Designs continues to lead the industry in SoC design for Blu-ray. As the company strives for creating products that are smaller, faster and less expensive, they promise to bring the highest quality Blu-ray experience to your home theater at the most affordable pricing.
GREAT NEWS ! Good to hear what is already in the high end products will one day become standard ! Digital Downloads ??? You have to be kidding me !!! They will not stand a chance with tech growing at this rapid rate !
I was just talking the other day to a coworker, trying to get him to buy into BD. He said he had checked it out at a freind's house and was dismayed at the slow load times. Good to see that problem will be phased out soon.
Today while attending CEATEC Japan, I had the opportunity to stop by the Sigma Designs suite at the beautiful Manhattan Hotel located just outside of Tokyo. Heading up product demonstrations at CEATEC, is Blu-ray.com's renowned insider Keith Jack, Director of Product Marketing for Sigma Designs. Mr. Jack was kind enough to walk me through a few product demonstrations of Sigma's award winning SoC (System-on-a-Chip) products. For those not aware of Sigma's role in the Blu-ray world, Sigma designs and manufactures specialized fabricated Blu-ray platforms that big-name consumer electronics manufacturers use to build their Blu-ray players. Sigma's products act as a motherboard to the overall Blu-ray platform and feature proprietary Sigma processors. Sigma's designs have appeared in top tier products from Sony, Pioneer and Panasonic as well as scores of Chinese manufacturers.
