Intel has unveiled its Viiv brand, which is created for the digital home and aimed at the consumer electronics market. The brand will be launched in the first quarter of 2006, a senior company executive said.
Speaking at the Intel Developers` Forum in San Francisco this week, Intel Digital Home Group VP and GM Don MacDonald told delegates that the Intel Viiv personal computer was designed to enhance digital entertainment.
MacDonald stated that the company is responding to consumer demands within the emerging "digital entertainment industry", driven by home networks and broadband. Some 300 million households worldwide currently have broadband, he said, which translates into about two billion entertainment devices.
Under the new brand, Intel intends to offer entertainment choices to consumers, including electronic devices, online services and software. MacDonald said PCs based on this platform would include Intel technologies, including dual-core processors, chipsets, platform software and wired networking capabilities.
Viiv technology-based systems are capable of handling multiple computer-intensive tasks simultaneously, MacDonald said. This is a growing consumer expectation, identified through years of research, he added. Intel dual-core processors allow multiple people to use one PC at the same time from different rooms in the house.
The introduction of the Viiv brand follows the success of Intel`s Centrino mobile technology, said the company, and its design was largely influenced by the company`s ethnology research programme, allowing consumers "to set the bar".
MacDonald said all PCs based on Viiv technology will ship with a remote control, the Microsoft Windows Media Centre Edition operating system and media software that allows consumers to interact with their PC in the same way they would operate a TV.
The platform enables consumers to watch movies or play games, while also downloading music, all from an integrated system using a remote control.
MacDonald pointed out that consumers will be able to quickly turn their PCs on and off (after initial boot-up) with the touch of a button, through a platform feature called Intel Quick Resume Technology.
It is intended that each Intel Viiv technology-based PC will also ship with 5.1 surround sound (with optional support for up to 7.1 surround sound) for home theatre-quality sound.
In addition, MacDonald commented, with an optional TV tuner card, the same PC will be able to record, pause and rewind live TV programmes, and store them on the hard drive for later viewing, allowing access to content on demand.
He noted that Viiv technology also includes an integrated media server "engine" that can reformat various digital content files so they can be viewed on a selection of devices verified by Intel to work with Viiv technology-based systems.
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