Add-In Cards Could Let PCs Tune In Digital TV

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November 04, 1998 (9:35 AM EST)

Add-In Cards Could Let PCs Tune In Digital TV

LG Semicon will roll out a chip set at Comdex this month it said it hopes will be used to bring DTV to next year's PCs.

Although new to the market, LG and other chip makers said they are betting DTV will provide a sorely needed new application to drive PC sales in 1999.

Taking advantage of more-advanced process technologies, Korea-based LG is spinning out more highly integrated devices that will show up in front-end receiver cards and DTV decoder cards that can handle progressive-scan CRT output capabilities and "talk" to a separate graphics card using an emerging communications port.

LG said it hopes ATI Technologies, Intel, and STB Systems will be among those using its decoder chips in PC add-in cards. Such a solution requires new algorithms to convert from an interlaced to a progressive scan format, plus a new decoder-to-graphics chip-interface standard. Hardware decoding, however, may face resistance from Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel, which is pushing its software-only decoding proposal as the lowest-cost solution for DTV-enabled PCs.

"LG will be very active in this segment," said Jim Hopkins, vice president of strategic marketing at Richardson, Texas-based STB, which makes graphics cards. STB is testing two chip sets, including the LG parts, for DTV add-in cards, he said.

Intel is working with Zenith and LG Semicon to define a reference design to handle the 18 incoming DTV signals specified by the Advanced Television System Committee. The card is based on a vestigal sideband (VSB) receiver device from LG, the GDC21D003, said Jong-Soo Lee, assistant manager of LG's DTV chip-set marketing group.

Based on 0.35-micron technology, the chip combines a channel decoder, a channel equalizer, and an analog-to-digital converter, functions that were previously offered as discrete devices. The card receives data via an external intermediate-frequency demodulator chip from Sanyo, which takes the incoming signal from a tuner supplied by Alps, Sharp, or Matsushita. After the signal has been processed by the receiver card, the data is sent to either a TV or PC for decoding.

LG, now sampling the device for $50, will begin volume production in a month or two. Lee said he expects the first add-in receiver cards based on the device to be ready by the first half of 1999.

Ontario-based ATI and STB will be early adopters of the device for their graphics cards, Lee said.

One of the technical challenges to be tackled by card vendors is the conversion of the interlaced format into a progressive-scan format used in PC monitors. Now, the MPEG-2 decoder hardware from LG isn't capable of making the format conversion, so graphics-card companies are developing their own algorithms to perform de-interlacing in software, Lee said.

The decoder, now being debugged, has a transport-stream parser that lets it interface to a VSB card, output controller, and Video Interface Port (VIP 2.0).

Ratified by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) last November, VIP defines an interface between graphics devices and video chips such as DVD, HDTV, and video decoders. It has won the support of Microsoft and Intel in the PC 9x specification and been adopted by graphics-chip companies such as 3Dfx and NVidia.

The 2.0 will support dual video streams with programmable direction, enabling new video applications. The standard should be ratified by year's end, VESA said.

PC manufacturers will have to see whether their customers prefer hardware or software-based decoding.

LG is also preparing to field new silicon for consumer DTVs. By the end of this year, the company will begin to sell samples of its GDC21S801 SDTV decoder chip, which will complement its three-piece chip set for HDTV that it introduced last year.

By the second half of 1999, the company said it expects to start sampling its HDTV decoder device, the GDC21D801. That chip will combine all the functions of its HDTV chip set into one device, Lee said.