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Photo of the day: PixelView PlayTV@P7000 TV tuner in our lab

IO-DATA announces iVDR-20, the first iVDR storage device

Intel unveils PXA27x XScale chips for PDAs and smartphones

RADEON X800 xx series: speaking of specs

IDF Spring 2004 Japan: again about DDR2/DDR3 prospects

MSI introduces K8N Neo Platinum on nForce3 250Gb



Photo of the day: PixelView PlayTV@P7000 TV tuner in our lab

We are currently testing PixelView PlayTV@P7000 TV tuner with MPEG-1/2 hardware compression support from Prolink Microsystems Corporation, the owner of PixelView graphics card brand. The model is positioned not as a professional video capture solution, but as an addition to home multimedia PC.

Card features are:

  • 181 receive channels
  • Full antenna and cable range tuner
  • MPEG-1/2 real-time hardware compression at 2-15Mbps bitrate (Conexant CX23416-12)
  • 224Kbps audio bitrate at 44.1/48kHz (Conexant CX23881-19)
  • 720x576(PAL) / 720x480(NTSC) resolutions
  • CBR and VBR support
  • Audio over PCI
  • Supports BG/BH/DK/I/L/L´
  • Noise reduction
  • S-Video, Composite (with adapter), Stereo inputs






IO-DATA announces iVDR-20, the first iVDR storage device

It´s been 25 months since we first mentioned iVDR (Information Versatile Disk for Removable usage) standard designed for 2.5"/1.8" hard drives for use in PCs and other electronics. The last mention sounded at CES 2003, so we started thinking we would never see iVDR alive. But today IO-DATA announced the first iVDR cartridge and the first reader, so perhaps, this initiative will become popular in the future.

If you remember, iVDR specs were jointly developed by Sanyo Electric, Canon, Fujitsu, Hitachi Manufacturing, Phoenix Technologies, Pioneer, Sharp, Victor Company of Japan, FCI and Mitsumi. They define connector design, unified interface, file system, etc. According to the specs, drives have 50-pin plug with over 10,000 connect/disconnect cycles guaranteed.

Electrical specs, instruction set, etc. meet ATA Standard + AV Expansion + Secure Expansion. iVDR drive´s nominal shock is 900G, and the file system is this simple — File system for iVDR. During recent years iVDR obtained some new media form-factors: iVDR Secure, iVDR Secure Mini and iVDR Secure Micro.





IO-DATA´s iVDR-20 removable drive announced today is bundled with a USB2-iVDR/20 USB2.0 adapter. This iVDR Mini storage has 20GB capacity, bases on 1.8" 4,200rpm Serial ATA HDD with 2MB buffer. I don´t know about the File system for iVDR, but the novelty is partitioned, according to FAT32. Sized 80x67x10mm, iVDR-20 weighs about 70g.



As for USB2-iVDR/20, the adapter works under Windows 98SE/Me/2000/XP, Mac OS 9.x, Mac OS X 10.1-10.3.1. Sized 95x135x21.5mm, it weighs 120g.

I´ll just add that in Japan 20GB iVDR-20 will cost about ¥25200 ($240), while USB2-iVDR/20 adapter will cost ¥35700 ($340). Well, for now it seems cheaper to buy an external USB drive. Still, if iVDR evolves to a usual SOHO multimedia center attribute, perhaps, its price will be more acceptable. But at the moment, this seems exotic...

Intel unveils PXA27x XScale chips for PDAs and smartphones

Today Intel unveiled PXA27x XScale chips designed for mobile handsets and PDAs that were previously codenamed Bulverde. PXA27x series features 312-624MHz clock rates, 32MB or 64MB StrataFlash.


Intel PXA27x brief specs:

  • Intel Wireless Trusted Platform supporting VPN, SSL, OMA, IMEI, OMA-DRM
  • Intel Wireless MMX for extended multimedia, 3D, video support
  • Intel Quick Capture supporting >4-megapixel digital cameras
  • Integrated 24-bit Dual-Panel LCD controller
  • Wireless Intel SpeedStep providing 5 power saving modes with dynamic core clock and voltage adjust
  • Intel Mobile Scalable Link for a 416Mbps link between processor comm and computing units
  • USB OTG (USB-On-The-Go)
  • 4-bit SDI/O
  • MMC/SD/Memory Stick/USIM/PCMCIA/CF
  • 100MHz memory bus, 1.8V, 2.5V, 3.0V, 3.3V voltage, up to 64MB of Intel StrataFlash and 32MB of low-voltage SDRAM
  • 14x14mm package
  • Supports Linux, Palm OS, Symbian, Microsoft (CE.Net, Smartphone, Pocket PC), Nucleus, SavaJe
  • $32 for 312MHz Intel PXA27x in over 10,000-unit quantities
  • Optional 2700G graphics accelerator with hardware support of MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and WMV9 at dual-monitor SXVGA output; $17 in over 10,000-unit quantities; volume shipments in Q2 2004

By the way, prototypes on PXA27x (Bulverde) were already mentioned in our news from CeBIT 2004, so you can take another look at them here: ASUS at CeBIT 2004: PDAs and handsets.

RADEON X800 xx series: speaking of specs

Since there´s already information about NVIDIA GeForce 6800 (see our today news), it would be right to mention competing products, especially considering that neither DarkCrow, nor Gzeasy can be considered misinformative.

RADEON X800 SE X800 Pro X800 XT X880 XT
Core R420 R420 R420 R423
GPU process 130nm, Low-K
Transistors 160-180 million
Core clock 450MHz 500MHz 600MHz
Memory type DDR DDR3
Memory size 128MB 256-512MB
Memory bus 128-bit 256-bit
Memory clock 800MHz 1000MHz 1200MHz
Pipelines 8 12 16
Interface AGP 8x PCI-E x16
Price $299 $399 $499 $499
Release date mid-June April 26 May 31 June 14

IDF Spring 2004 Japan: again about DDR2/DDR3 prospects

At IDF Spring 2004 Japan they discussed issues related to implementation of the future DDR2 memory. Actually this session resembled the one held at IDF Spring 2004 in California, so if you need the basics, please read IDF Spring 2004: FB-DIMM and Memory Implementers Forum. The nearest future of DDR2. And we´ll proceed to the new details unveiled.


The new memory roadmap is more or less known: before 2004 ends we should expect DDR2-400/533 implementation, while DDR2-667/800 solutions are to go on mass sale next year, because these days they finish DDR2-667 specs development and specify DDR2-800 interchannel compatibility. DDR3 is scheduled to 2006 and later time.


The current situation around DDR2-400/533 is that most makers have already validated their server and desktop modules and launched the mass production. At the moment only SO-DIMM DDR2-400/533 modules are to be validated. Therefore, by the moment three vendors are ready to support Grandsdale chipsets with their Unbuffered DIMMs, while server Lindenhurst is already supported by Registered DIMMs of five companies.

As you know, desktop Alderwood and Grandsdale support both DDR333/400 and DDR2-400/533. Neither vendors, nr analysts do not expect DDR2 to become wide-spread in the nearest future. DDR-2 market expansion and replacement of DDR-1 might last for about a couple of years. Most likely, DDR2-400/533 sales will be additionally boosted by mobile Alviso-based Centrino platform in H2 2004.

The most interesting speech at IDF Japan was made by Elpida that outlined its future memory roadmap generally identical to Intel´s.



Source: ASCII24

MSI introduces K8N Neo Platinum on nForce3 250Gb

On the threshold of the last weekend MSI introduced its new K8N Neo Platinum motherboard that supports new Socket 754 AMD Athlon 64 processors. Based on NVIDIA nForce3 250Gb, the board features NVIDIA Gigabit LAN, NV RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 4 x Serial ATA, special Communication Slot for IEEE802.11g/Bluetooth.


MSI K8N Neo Platinum brief specs:

  • ATX form-factor
  • NVIDIA nForce3 250Gb chipset
  • 6 x DDR266/333/400 sockets, 3 of them support up to 3GB DDR SDRAM
  • AGP 8x, 5 x PCI slots
  • Software NV RAID: up to 4 x SATA + 2 x ATA133 HDDs, RAID 0, 1, 0+1, JBOD (or 4 x SATA + IDE RAID 0,1,0+1 in FIS2R model; 2 x SATA + IDE RAID 0,1,0+1 in FSR model)
  • 8 x USB
  • Gigabit Ethernet IEEE 802.3 NVIDIA MAC (1000BASE-T/Gigabit/Fast Ethernet/Ethernet) + 10/100 Ethernet
  • 3 x IEEE1394
  • 5.1-channel AC´97, digital SPDIF-out
  • Optional antenna-equipped Dual-Net card supporting 802.11g/Bluetooth in Communication Slot
  • CoreCell, D.O.T (Dynamic Overclocking Technology), Meta I/O, BuzzFree, LifePro, CoreCenter, Live Update, etc.

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