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New BridgeCo Media Network Processors Bring Audio and Video to the Living Room

Posted on: Thursday, 6 January 2005, 12:00 CST

BridgeCo Offers Industry's First Vertically Integrated Hardware & Software Solution to Offer Video Imaging Capability for Digital Media Players

BridgeCo (www.bridgeco.net), a leading provider of digital home entertainment networking solutions, announced two new media network processors at the Consumer Electronics Show today. The DM850, which comes complete with BridgeCo's digital media player (DMP) firmware stack, is the industry's first fully integrated hardware/software solution that enables OEMs and ODMs to introduce cost-effective digital media players with both audio playback and video image display capabilities.

Based on BridgeCo's existing DM800 architecture and more than two years of experience in the rapidly emerging digital media player market, the new BridgeCo DM850 is designed to meet rising consumer expectations for extensive audio and video interface options. The DM850 includes an ITU-656 compliant video port, which will allow DMP consumer products to display JPEG images and MPEG-4 video, and a 480 Mbps USB 2.0 serial interface for direct image download from digital cameras. The processor also satisfies the demand for multi-channel audio with four SP/DIF plus four I2S audio ports. BridgeCo also announced its DM830 processor, which is optimized for audio-only applications.

Digital Media Players Connect Consumer Electronics to Home Networks

Digital Media Players allow stereo systems, televisions and other consumer electronics products to become nodes on a home network, connecting them with home PCs and the Internet. With a DMP, a home audio system can access and play MP3 files archived on a PC hard drive, or play music directly from online music services or Internet radio stations. By adding video capability, DMPs built-on BridgeCo's DM850 can now also access and display JPEG images stored on a PC, or capture JPEG input directly from a digital camera for display on a TV and storage on a PC hard drive.

DMP functionality can be offered by OEMs and ODMs as a cost-effective after-market product that upgrades any existing audio or television product for network connectivity. Consumer electronics OEMs can also embed DMP functionality directly into next-generation audio and video products. BridgeCo expects that after-market DMPs based on the company's reference design will retail for under US$75.

Complete Turn-key Reference Designs Available

The BridgeCo DM850 and DM830 processors interface directly to a wide variety of PHY-layer network devices, including HomePlug(TM) Powerline chips and 802.11g wireless devices. The DM850 or DM830 with bundled DMP firmware handle the rest of the networking, decryption, decompression, user interface and control requirements. BridgeCo has joined with a leading 802.11g chip vendor to offer a complete wireless DMP reference design, which includes a system board, SDK (software developer's kit), a complete bill-of-materials and Gerber files.

The DMP firmware bundle includes a real time operating system, and it handles TCP/IP and USB networking protocols; MP3, WMA and other audio format decompression; JPEG and MPEG4 video decompression; DTCP/IP, Windows Media Connect and many other popular digital rights management (DRM) encryption/decryption processing and authentication; and UPnP, IR and LCD control functions.

The BridgeCo processor/firmware solution is designed to be interoperable with a wide variety of consumer devices: it is expected to be based on Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) Guidelines in the future, and it is compliant with Intel(R) Networked Media Product Requirements (NMPR).

Vertically Integrated Solution Eliminates Software Development / Integration Delay

The DM850 and DM830 are custom engineered for the DMP application by combining an ARM processor and BridgeCo's proprietary, Real Time Media Processor in a single device. With 300% more MIPS than BridgeCo's popular media processor, the DM850 and DM830 have the enhanced processing headroom to handle every known audio format, and new applications like voice-over-IP (VoIP).

BridgeCo's comprehensive processor architecture and firmware stack is a proven, vertically integrated solution that has been field-tested and market-accepted for more than two years. BridgeCo's bundled firmware eliminates the need for system OEMs and ODMs to create or integrate third-party operating systems, middleware, application software or complex drivers, making it possible for BridgeCo customers to achieve rapid market entry. An intuitive application programming interface (API) expands flexibility and simplifies the learning curve, enabling OEM and ODM customers to easily customize and differentiate the user interface and other performance parameters. And the DM850 and DM830 are Linux-capable, opening the BridgeCo DMP platform to Linux-based media servers and application development by third-party software vendors.

"Our customers asked for many new features in our next-generation network media processor design," said BridgeCo's Founder and CTO Christof Heidelberger. "They demanded an extensive range of audio and video interface options, the processing bandwidth to handle all existing and expected content formats and user applications, and support for an increasing portfolio of MIPS-consuming DRM schemes. We developed our comprehensive DMP firmware stack and DM850 and DM830 processors to deliver exactly the right combination of features so that our OEM and ODM customers can introduce complete consumer products with a minimum of investment and a minimum of market delay."

Pricing and Availability

The DM850 and DM830 are available now. BridgeCo DMP software and DM850 or DM830 ICs are priced as bundled platforms that incorporate both the processor IC and DMP firmware stack.

The DMP/DM830 combined firmware/processor platform is available for US$15 to sub-US$10 in high volume, depending on included firmware modules.

The DMP/DM850 combined firmware/processor platform is available for US$18 to sub-US$13 in high volume, depending on included firmware modules.

About BridgeCo

BridgeCo is a pioneer of digital entertainment networking solutions. The company's Entertainment Network Adapters(TM) (ENAs) are the world's most comprehensive, cost-effective and highly integrated silicon and software platforms for connecting Internet media sources, PCs and consumer electronics throughout the home. BridgeCo ENAs are used in a wide range of innovative and legacy products produced by the multi-billion dollar global consumer electronics industry, including Digital Media Players, Audio/Video receivers, DVD players, musical instruments and breakout boxes.

Underlying all BridgeCo solutions are proprietary, integrated semiconductor and software technologies that network PCs to CE devices via widely-used standards and protocols for network and signal processing, including IEEE 802.11/WiFi, IEEE 1394 and UPnP.

BridgeCo is an ISO 9001-certified company based in Zurich, Switzerland. Its key investors include Fidelity Ventures, Benchmark Capital, Earlybird, Infineon Ventures, and Intel Capital. For more information, please visit www.bridgeco.net.

All trademarks and service marks are the properties of their respective owners.

Source: Business Wire

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