A reference design for an add-in board that extends the multimedia capability of a personal computer to play full-resolution, full-motion video and CD stereo sound has been announced by Texas Instruments Inc and AuraVision Corp. Multimedia add-in boards based on this design will enable personal computer users to run movies, games, and educational software that are based on the MPEG-1 data compression standard. This reference design combines Texas Instruments’ signal processing expertise in digital compression with AuraVision’s windowing control expertese. With the Texas Instruments-AuraVision design, computer manufacturers or add-in board manufacturers will have an AT-based multimedia offering that includes MS-DOS and Windows software drivers, sample applications and a hardware solution that minimises the host processor interaction by synchronising the audio and video and decoding the MPEG system stream on chip. Three integrated chips comprise the reference design: Texas Instruments’ TMS320AV220 Video CD MPEG-1 Decoder, it’s TMS320AV120 MPEG Audio Decoder and AuraVision’s VxP201 Video Playback Processor. The two Texas Instruments chips implement the MPEG-1 Video and Audio decompression algorithms. The AV220 parses the MPEG system stream, synchronises audio and video playback and provides audio buffering to work seamlessly with the AV120 and eliminate the need for separate audio memory. The AuraVision VxP201 is designed specifically for audio-visual interleave and MPEG playback environments. The processor provides colour space conversion, vertical and horizontal interpolation, window resizing and a VGA interface. These three chips combine to form the core of the full-motion video playback board. Features include an AT bus interface, support of up to 1,280 by 1,024 resolution, high quality interpolated zoom and full colour control. It will be available this quarter at $3,000.
