Ravisent Technologies Inc. today announced that all of its shipping DVD/MPEG-2 decoder/player products are “HDTV-ready.“” All copies of the company’s CineMaster® decoder product line, the leading software-based DVD decoder/players for personal computers shipping since mid-1999, now incorporate advanced proprietary algorithms enabling the decoding of all eighteen (18) digital
television formats specified by the Advanced Television Standards Committee (ATSC), including all the high definition television (HDTV) formats.

In the near future, consumers will be able to easily upgrade appropriate personal computer configurations that already include the CineMaster 99 DVD player to a full “HDTV PC“” with only the addition of an ATSC-compliant receiver card and associated drivers for channel tuning and control. No additional HDTV decoder solution will be required. Several independent hardware vendors (IHVs), including Conexant Systems Inc., have announced the availability of ATSC-compliant television receiver cards and/or receiver card reference designs using RAVISENT’s software for use in personal computers. These upgrades will be available through OEM computer manufacturers and Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) sales channels later this year.

Using an already-shipping version of the CineMaster 99 DVD decoder/player and beta versions of its software add-ons for TV tuning/control and ATVEF data viewing, RAVISENT will publicly demonstrate true HDTV plus enhanced viewing of interactive program data at the Intel Developers Forum (IDF), February 14-17, 2000 in Palm Springs, CA. The RAVISENT HDTV demonstration will use a standard commercially available Pentium® III-based PC running Microsoft Windows and an ATSC receiver card based on the previously announced DStreamATSC(TM) single card reference platform design from Conexant Systems, Inc. Please note that with this solution, format support may vary based on CPU speed and VGA hardware acceleration available on the system.