A new reference design for developing consumer “media center” applications was announced today by Toshiba America Electronic Components. The system, based on Toshiba's TX7901 64-bit MIPS architecture system-on-chip processor, is expected to form the basis of high performance media-centric consumer devices such as digital set-top boxes, personal video recorders, media gateways, and various other networked… consumer products.

“We expect the entertainment home gateway to be the center of the home of the future where it will control various digital home appliances,” said Tetsuro Wada, a business development and technical marketing director at Toshiba America Electronic Components.

In addition to Toshiba's TX4901 system-on-chip processor, the AVM79R reference design includes a Toshiba TC86C001FG IDE/USB companion chip and VWEB's VW2010 MPEG1/2/4 CODEC, along with a range of software, tools, and support from third-party sources including . . .

• NetFront Internet browser, from ACCESS
• Digital Rights management support, from Macrovision
• Software for networked entertainment devices in the home, from Mediabolic
• Embedded Linux operating system, tool chains, and system integration, from Lineo uSolutions
• Consumer electronics software applications, graphical user interfaces, and integration services, from Planetweb
• Encryptonite encryption and Digital Rights Management, from SecureMedia
• Gateway protocol stack and system integration, from SnapGear
• MPEG-1, -2 and -4 codec, with transcoding and translating capability, from VWEB
• Interactive set-top box and system integration, from ZAO Networks

AVM79R Reference Design features include . . .

• CPU: Toshiba TMPR7901XB-200 superscalar 64-bit MIPS RISC processor
  
• MPEG-2/-4 codec: VWEB VW2010, full D1 MPEG-4 support, MPEG-2/-4 transcoding
  
• Companion chip: TC86C001FG, Toshiba Universal Serial Bus (USB) host/device, IDE Ultra-DMA mode 4 interface, and Inter-IC bus interface
  
• Storage: built-in hard drive and DVD drive
  
• Interfaces: PCI, USB 1.1 host/device, Ethernet MAC, S-Video (In/Out), Composite (In/Out), Sony/Philips Digital Interconnect Format, IDE (ATA66MB), and general purpose input/output
  
• Software — MPEG streaming, personal video recorder, video on demand, Digital Radio Mondiale, Quality of Service, Home Network Protocol, Residential Gateway stacks, Voice over IP, etc.

Toshiba says the new AVM79R reference design will be available in April 2003 for $3,000 (USD)

 
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