HDTV on your PC soon!

HYDERABAD: In what could be termed as a feast to eyes, ATI Technologies is gearing up to make available High Definition Television (HDTV) on a PC at an affordable price. ATI's multimedia product group is focusing on video-enabled multimedia platform that will mark the entry of the PC as your home's first HDTV device.






ATI Technologies CTO and consumer business unit senior VP Adrian Hartog said, "Consumers are awaiting the transmission of high-value movie content from Hollywood to the PC. This is more interesting for leisure and entertainment and to do that they need to upgrade the PC video capabilities to be compatible with multiple digital video-enabled entertainment."





What ATI offers for consumers in the US is HDTV Wonder, which is a PCI card for analog TV, free-to-air digital TV and full quality free-to-air HDTV reception. It offers personal video recorder capabilities, with the controls to watch, pause and record all forms of TV to system's hard disk or to CDs and DVDs. In addition to analog cable support, the HDTV antenna allows consumers to experience free-to-air HDTV broadcasts without having to subscribe to potentially expensive cable or satellite service charges.





Commenting on whether such service offering would be available for consumers across the world, Hartog said, "It's the future. Though we can't anticipate whether this would happen in the next six months or one year, it is bound to be the future technology and there is a great market opportunity for us."





He further explained, "The PC manufacturers are now focusing on LCD monitors that can deliver high-resolution video and make entertainment much more interesting for consumers. But the challenges are that the consumers expect that PCs are available at the same prices as TVs are available, yet support good quality. Our recent graphics processors support this functionality, however, we are in synergy with our customers and offer HDTV functionality on the PC to ensure that we support high-quality video on PCs".