Wednesday, January 4, 2006

Broadcom Rolls Out Combined HD-DVD, Blu-ray Chip

Irvine-based Broadcom has decided to sidestep the current next generation DVD format battles, and has rolled out the first high definition decoder chip that supports both HD-DVD and Blu-ray. Broadcom launched the new chip at CES, saying that the new chip is focused on high definition set top boxes for cable, satellite, and IPTV. Broadcom's newest chip supports both the HD-DVD and Blu-ray optical disc formats, and can decode compressed HD video stored in either format. The BCM7411D HD A/V decoder chip supports H.264 MPEG and the VC-1 (Microsoft Windows Media) decoding standards, which is required for both HD-DVD and Blu-ray. The chip also supports MPEG-2 decoding such as that used in current DVD formats.

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