[mfogarty5]

So I googled Gennum VXP to see if any new products were announced at CES which use the same 9450 chip that is in the Radiance and ran across the news that Sigma Designs is buying Gennum.


According to the press release below(warning .pdf) Sigma Designs plans on combining their system on a chip(SoC) designs with Gennum processors to"bring broadcast quality video output to consumer televisions."

http://www.sigmadesigns.com/public/C...ses/080103.pdf

 

[madshi]

Wow, that's certainly interesting news! I wonder whether Gennum/Sigma will continue to release video processing only chips. Or else the modularity of the Lumagen might have been done for nothing...

 

[jrp]

I just received my "dear customer" email from Gennum. While I have been assured we will continue to be able to purchase the GF9450 video chips we are using in the Radiance line, and that there are future products in design at Gennum right now, I do not have any info on whether Sigma plans to add additional products to enhance the GF9450 or just integrate this technology into their other chips.


Whether they bring out new products, or not, is not a major factor for us. We have the ability to change to new improved chips whether they come from Sigma, Silicon Optix, or another company. We feel the Gennum GF9450 is the best overall chip right now, but the playing field is constantly changing. That is why we have have the Gennum chip on a daughter card and do all the work (such as no-ring scaling and calibration) other then deinterlacing and image enhancement in FPGA's. This daughter card can be changed out for a new board without having to completely replace your RadianceXD system. No plans or schedule at this point for a different daughtercard, but I think Sigma buying the imaging portion of Gennum is further confirmation that separating out the video deinterlacing and enhancement hardware on a daughter card makes a lot of sense.


Congratulations to Sigma on the purchase of some great technology. I look forward to hearing how they plan to build on this foundation in the future.


BTW: I should point out that Sigma bought the imaging portion of Gennum, not Gennum itself. Gennum has a lot of other product lines that are not covered under this agreement.

 

[madshi]

Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Cameron]

It will be interesting to see how it pans out. Fortunately the Radiance has the hardware architecture that will support different chips if necessary.

 

[kjack]

The plan is that the VXP group will continue to develop new standalone processing chips, and some basic VXP technology will also be integrated into some of our media processors.

 

[JavierS]



Quote:
Originally Posted by kjack /forum/post/13041448


The plan is that the VXP group will continue to develop new standalone processing chips, and some basic VXP technology will also be integrated into some of our media processors.

I recently had a TVIX 5100SH (EM8623) and played the HQV test DVD on it. It's score on the deinterlacing tests was far from the best I've seen. It'll be very interesting to see a product with the decoding capabilities of the EMs plus the processing of the VXPs, specially if price doesn't go through the roof.

 

[madshi]



Quote:
Originally Posted by kjack /forum/post/13041448


The plan is that the VXP group will continue to develop new standalone processing chips, and some basic VXP technology will also be integrated into some of our media processors.

Thanks for the heads up!

 

[Eric Carroll]

$18M for 46 people, 10 patents, 5 shipping chips and an existing revnue stream for a major deinterlacer & video processor chip? Does this seem low to anyone else or am I missing something?


Looking at Gennum's financial reporting, it suggests, but is not conclusive, that Gennum was losing money on the VXP line. Certainly it appears it was not increasing in revenue the way they expected.


Either way, great opportunity for someone who can put better marketing/sales focus behind the VXP chipset.

 

[mfogarty5]



Quote:
Originally Posted by kjack /forum/post/13041448


The plan is that the VXP group will continue to develop new standalone processing chips, and some basic VXP technology will also be integrated into some of our media processors.

Keith,


According to the website below, Sigma produces most of the chipsets for Blu-ray players. As a result of the purchase of Gennum, I was expecting to see Blu-ray players with VXP inside some time in 2009 similar to some of the current players like the Samsung bd-p1200 and bd-up5000 that have the Reon chip.


Your statement above leads me to believe that there are no plans to market a Blu-ray player with VXP inside. Is that the case?

http://www.idoblu.co.uk/page2%20Blu-ray%20Players.html

 

[kjack]



Quote:
Originally Posted by mfogarty5 /forum/post/13395722


Your statement above leads me to believe that there are no plans to market a Blu-ray player with VXP inside. Is that the case?

That's not up to Sigma to decide.

But we made sure that our new BD SoC chip works seamlessly with the current and new VXP chips.

 

[mfogarty5]

As was speculated earlier in the thread, Sigma Designs announced a new reference design for Blu-Ray players at CES that includes the Gennum VXP GF9450 chip which I believe is the same one that is in the Lumagen Radiance. It will be interesting to see which CE manufacturers use this reference design.


"Sigma's new premium Blu-ray player reference design provides a next generation architecture featuring studio quality video output for the finest viewing experience of both Blu-ray and DVD media, along with the highest system performance for a snappier user interface response and the most proven Blu-ray software suite available. This reference design is based on Sigma's SMP8644 media processor, along with the company's GF9450 that features studio-quality VXP® image processing technology. "

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/s...55&newsLang=en