from an NVIDIA press release
COMPUTEX, TAIWANJUNE 8, 2006NVIDIA Corporation today unveiled PureVideo HD technology, which delivers outstanding HD DVD and Blu-ray movie playback on PCs. PureVideo HD combines hardware acceleration from an NVIDIA graphics processing unit, high definition movie player integration and HDCP feature support to make it easy for manufacturers and consumers to build powerhouse PCs that can play HD DVD or Blu-ray movies. As a result, consumers will be able to enjoy a stunning high-definition movie experience on their PCs.
"Consumer interest in blue-laser DVD technology on the PC is growing we project that more than 35 million high-definition optical disk drives will be integrated into PCs in the next five years," said Wolfgang Schlichting, Research Director at IDC. "The industry is on the threshold of a new era in entertainment, but typical consumers do not know what is required to play an HD movie on a PC. Therefore, an integrated solution such as PureVideo HD, which will give the user a high-quality experience when playing their HD movies on a PC, will be an important feature of a next-generation PC," he added.
The next digital entertainment revolution is about to begin, with highly anticipated HD DVD and Blu-ray movies shipping this summer. These movies feature lifelike imagery with up to six times more visual detail than standard DVDs, but they cant be played with regular DVD drives. HD movies are encoded in new formats that require special HD optical drives, hardware acceleration, HDCP compatible displays, and new HD movie player software.
NVIDIA has the solution. PureVideo HD technology combines high-definition movie decode acceleration (using certain NVIDIA GeForce 7-series GPUs), HDCP circuitry and HD movie player integration to deliver cinematic-quality Blu-ray and HD DVD movie playback on a PC.
