| Embedded Linux: a million high-end DVD players can't be wrong |
Jan. 19, 2004
 If you have a high-end DVD player with built-in networking, or an IP set-top-box (STB) with a built-in DVD player, odds are that Linux runs in your family room. Sigma, which claims to be the marketshare leader in "IP STB" chips, says it has shipped "about a million" DVD player system-on-chip processors that run its custom uClinux operating system.
(Click for larger view of Sigma's DVD Player Development Kit)
Sigma's 8500-series DVD chips run uClinux on an integrated processor core supporting the ARM7 instruction set, with an integrated media processor supporting an increasing number of decoders.
Sigma launched its 8500-series DVD chips "about a year ago," along with a "DVD Player Development Kit" based on its in-house uClinux port, according to Ken Lowe, VP of strategic marketing at Sigma. The port took a team of three about six months.
Lowe estimates Sigma's share of the worldwide IP STB market at "about 75 percent" in 2003. Devices based on Sigma's DVD chips have been manufactured by Lite-On, V-tech, KISS, and others, and have been re-branded and marketed under many different names, according to Lowe.
Some device manufacturers have deployed Sigma's Linux reference design unchanged, according to Lowe, while others have made extensions and modifications. KISS, which recently came under fire from the mplayer project for alleged code theft, falls into the latter group, Lowe confirms.
During the past year, several revisions of the Sigma DVD chip have added support for additional decoders, with the most recent model, the 8620, adding support for the Windows Media Player format. Other formats supported in hardware include: DVD-Video, Superbit DVD, DVD-R/-RW/+R/+RW (conditional), SVCD, VCD, Picture CD, CD/CD-R/CD-RW (audio, WMA, DivX, MP3, JPEG, and MPEG-4 files), MPEG-1, MPEG-2 MP@ML, MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile Level 5, Dolby Digital, and MPEG-1 Layers 1, 2, and 3 (MP3).
At present, Linux is the only operating system supported on the chips, and Sigma has no plans to offer development kits based on other embedded operating systems. "Linux is quite fine, and does the job, and serves everybody's purpose," said Lowe.
The Sigma uClinux implementation is freely downloadable, and can be found on the uClinux ports page.
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