: Sigma Designs is collaborating with Pioneer on Blu-Ray

Future Blu-Ray players from Pioneer will have the Sigma Designs SMP8630 Media processor.

Sigma's SMP8634 media processor integrates a complete complement of next-generation capabilities for a single-chip system-on-chip (SOC) solution with powerful multimedia processing, robust content security system, and a full complement of peripherals. Its advanced decoder engines support video decoding of H.264 (MPEG-4 part 10), Windows Media® Video 9 (Microsoft's implementation of VC-1, the proposed SMPTE standard), MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 (part 2) with multiple streams, up to the equivalent of two high-definition video streams. High-performance graphics acceleration, multistandard audio decoding, advanced display processing capabilities, and HDMI/HDCP output round out its multimedia core. Powerful content security is ensured through a dedicated secure processor, flash memory, and a range of digital rights management (DRM) engines for high-speed payload decryption. The SMP8634's 300-MIPS host CPU, 3.2 GB/second unified memory controller, Ethernet 10/100 controller, dual USB 2.0 controller, and IDE controller provide for a single-chip solution for most set-top boxes and consumer layers.