Philips enables high-definition video with Nexperia PNX1700 media processor

March 7, 2005

Award-winning super-pipelined TriMedia core delivers unprecedented picture quality from diverse media formats

Royal Philips Electronics today introduced the PNX1700, the newest member of the company’s NexperiaTM family of media processors with high-definition (HD) capabilities. Combining media processing, network connectivity and display enhancement on a single chip, the PNX1700 is designed to deliver unprecedented picture quality of streaming movies, news, digital photos and TV programs. It doubles the performance of previous generations while maintaining both hardware and software compatibility. Digital Connected Consumer devices enabled by the PNX1700 include IP set-top boxes, digital media adapters, personal video recorders, videophones and TVs.

Gartner Research predicts that by 2008, nearly one in three homes worldwide will have broadband Internet connection, supported by consumer demand for electronics and PC devices that can stream digital media content, such as broadcast television, movies, music and games. As a result of increasing demand for digital content, consumer electronics manufacturers are seeking media processors with the ideal combination of high performance and low cost.

“The technology offered by Nexperia media processors facilitates the delivery of high-quality digital content to consumers worldwide,” said Pat Romano, CTO and vice president of engineering at 2Wire. “As demand for digital content grows in the mainstream population, 2Wire looks forward to offering products which are powered by Nexperia and designed around the specific needs of the connected consumer.”

“The PNX1700 not only extends Philips’ technology and market leadership, but also further validates Nexperia’s ability to meet our partners’ needs, such as time-to-market, upgradeability and low cost,” said Chris Day, general manager of Advanced Media Processing at Philips Semiconductors. “The PNX1700 leverages our customers’ existing investments in both software and hardware, while providing them with a cost-effective path to high-definition video.”

The PNX1700 features a new 500MHz+ super-pipelined TriMediaTM CPU core, winner of the prestigious Best Media Processor award from Microprocessor Forum based on its combination of high-performance and compatibility. It supports decoding of HD video formats, including Windows Media Video, DivX, MPEG-4 and MPEG-2. Furthermore, the PNX1700 can simultaneously encode and decode full D1 resolution MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 video, making it ideal for personal video recorder applications. The PNX1700 also includes new instructions to optimize encoding and decoding of H.264 video, and it supports standard definition (SD) to HD up-conversion with advanced de-interlacing.

Pricing and availability

The PNX1700 is supported by a complete development package including hardware reference design, C-compiler, debugger, and extensive software codecs and applications software. The PNX1700 will sample to select customers in June, with volume production scheduled for Q3 2005. The PNX1700 is priced at US$39 in volume.