IMAGINATION TECHNOLOGIES SHOWCASES FULLY VALIDATED MULTI-STANDARD HD VIDEO CORE AT CES 2007

LAS VEGAS, NV, Jan. 8, 2007 -- Imagination Technologies, a leader in system-on-chip intellectual property (SoC IP), is demonstrating its PowerVR MSVDX multi-standard high definition video decoder IP core at CES 2007 from 8th - 11th January in Las Vegas.

The PowerVR MSVDX core is capable of decoding JPEG, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, H.264, WMV8/9 and VC-1 at high definition resolutions and frame rates, including 720p, 1080i and 1080p, yet this multiple codec support has been implemented in an extremely efficient silicon area. This is because PowerVR MSVDX uses a highly configurable engine; a stream decode processor identifies the video standard on input and reconfigures the highly flexible multi-purpose modules in the core accordingly. This solution has huge benefits in reducing silicon area and power consumption.

Says Peter McGuinness, Director of Business Development (US), Imagination Technologies: "Imagination has a long history of providing high quality video decoding cores to volume consumer electronics markets, ensuring the best consumer experience. Our advanced multi-standard video decoder technology provides our customers with the confidence to create reliable multimedia system on chip solutions where die size, power consumption and adherence to standards are critical to the success of their products."

PowerVR MSVDX has already shipped to lead licensing partners and is available for wider licensing now. Initial silicon from Imagination Technologies' licensing partners is expected shortly.

PowerVR MSVDX recently passed the H.264 suite of test streams from Allegro, a leading provider of industry standard Compliance Test Suites, with High Profile@Level4.1 as well as Main and Baseline profiles. MSVDX has also been tested with the conformance stream provided by the standards bodies for H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 and with the conformance streams from Microsoft for WMV. It has also been tested with many customer supplied streams.

PowerVR MSVDX is supported with an extensive set of drivers and application middleware for IDTV, STB and PMP devices.

Inside PowerVR MSVDX

PowerVR MSVDX is a scalable multi-standard HD capable video decoder that provides exceptional performance per clock and brings high-quality image decoding with the widest range of video standards to cost-sensitive, high volume consumer video devices.

With its extensive multi-standard codec support, and the ability to decode multiple high-quality, high profile, simultaneous HD streams on a single core, PowerVR MSVDX is ideal for use in HDTV, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, IPTV, STB, PVR, PMP, Mobile TV and portable products.

PowerVR MSVDX supports all HD resolutions and may be configured to support single or dual HD streams, up to four SD streams or a combination of single HD and dual SD streams.

The decoder supports a wide range of video standards including H.263, H.264, VC-1, WMV 8/9, DivX, MPEG-4, MPEG-2, MPEG-1, and JPEG. PowerVR MSVDX can be configured with any subset of supported standards, enabling effective management of codec royalty costs.

Advanced error recovery is enhanced with dedicated hardware to increase resilience to errors on reception of a corrupted bit-stream. An extremely area-efficient micro-controller within the bit stream manager enables high-level error recovery, while low level detectors quickly trap other error conditions.

As well as enabling advanced TV, STB and disk-based HD video products PowerVR MSVDX is highly suited to mobile video devices targeting resolutions up to HD. The core offers the lowest power consumption in its class due to its patented PowerVR architecture, which from the ground up has been designed with the requirements of mobile devices in mind.

Imagination Technologies can supply a comprehensive display system solution for video applications. PowerVR MSVDX is part of the PowerVR Visual IP family of cores which provide 2D/3D graphics and advanced display pipeline processing as well as video codecs. The PowerVR Visual IP family includes a wide range of cores for image processing including motion adaptive and motion compensated de-interlacing, film mode detection, noise reduction, colour space conversion, skin colour control, luma and chroma transient improvement and black level expansion.

The PowerVR Visual IP cores can also be combined with Imagination's Universal Communications Core (UCC), to decode multi standard TV broadcast signals such as NTSC, PAL, DVB-T and ISDB-T and the META family of multi-threaded 32-bit DSP/RISC processors to decode multi standard audio to create complete Digital TV, Mobile TV and STB solutions.

About Imagination Technologies

Imagination Technologies Group plc - a leader in SoC IP - develops, licenses and supplies market-leading graphics, video and display cores, real-time multi-threaded DSP/RISC processors and communication and broadcast technologies for the mobile, consumer, automotive and PC markets. It supplies licensable IP (Intellectual Property) supported by advanced development tools to leading semiconductor and consumer electronics companies worldwide. Imagination Technologies Group plc has its corporate headquarters in the United Kingdom and offices in the US, Japan, Korea ad Taiwan and is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange (FTSE:IMG). See: www.imgtec.com.

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