Sun Microsystems Computer Corp has signed a memorandum of understanding with SRI International Inc’s Princeton, New Jersey-based David Sarnoff Research Center, the foundation that started life as RCA Corp’s research laboratory, and LSI Logic Corp, Milpitas for joint development of high-quality low-cost MPEG-2 video encoding offering. MPEG-2 is the high-resolution video compression format that will be used for high-definition television – the David Sarnoff lab was a prime mover in development of the US digital television standard. Sun is planning to use the compression technology to create option boards for SuperSparc-based Sparcstation 20 desktop machines planned for launch before the end of its current fiscal in July. It believes these systems, offering scalable real-time MPEG-2 encoding and full MPEG-2 compliance, will cost less than $50,000, way down from the $250,000 users are currently paying for comparable systems. The chip set, now under development and based on LSI’s CoreWare design methodology, will also be licensed to other vendors beginning in the seond quarter. Sun is a participant in LSI’s early access programme, will be involved in architecture design and review, and will get first silicon of the new part. LSI will own it. Sarnoff will develop compression algorithms and write software to run on the chip set. Sun is planning to go after the cable broadcast, corporate communications, distance learning and video-on-demand markets with the new product.
