Nvidia boosts video playback with PureVideo technology

 

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By Alun Williams

Posted on 22 Dec 2004 at 12:39

Nvidia has added PureVideo technology to its GeForce 6 Series of GPUs (graphics processing units). A mixture of hardware and software, it supports playback of MPEG-2 and high-definition (HD) video content on a PC.

Nvidia claims that PureVideo eliminates the need for additional hardware or chipsets while taking the load off the CPU (central processing unit).

'The personal computer has never been well-regarded for its abilities to deliver high-quality video playback,' said Dan Vivoli, executive VP of marketing at nVidia. 'The GeForce 6 Series with PureVideo technology finally merges the flexibility of the PC platform with the capabilities of high-end consumer electronics to give consumers more choice over how they experience video.'

Features of PureVideo include: high-definition MPEG-2 hardware acceleration (a 16-way vector processor is designed to smooth playback of HD video and minimise CPU usage), spatial / temporal adaptive de-interlacing (presenting interlaced content from satellite and cable without jagged edges or artefacts), multi-stream scaling (for increasing a small video to a large area of the screen) and display gamma correction (automatically adjusting the colour of video playback).

There is also programmable support for WMV High-definition Hardware Acceleration, the newest format - for the fluid playback of WMV and WMV HD content - supported by Microsoft Windows Media Player 10 and Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.

Graphics cards based on GeForce 6 Series GPUs with PureVideo technology should be available immediately the from leading Nvidia add-in card vendors and OEMs worldwide.

You can find more information on PurePlay at the Nvidia website.