ATI AVIVO ON A LAPTOP NEAR YOU? 21/09/2005

Video and the “home theatre experience” is starting to cause something of a stir, largely as its seen as the next great revenue stream for ISP and manufacturers alike. Better video playback means people are more likely to download films rather than buy DVDs, but the quality needs to be there. After all, who wants to watch in grainy resolutions?

ATi is placing its faith in its new Avivo technology as its next generation video and display platform as it comes with a number of new technologies. Essentially, the technology can enhance digital video and photos, creating sharp images, crisp text, and brighter colour.

Avivo uses ATI’s Xilleon and Theater Digital TV technology found inside many of today’s high-end consumer televisions to make your PC a universal multimedia hub.

How does this work with your laptop? With more systems now coming with a built-in TV tuner, it means we’ll finally get a decent picture, making the laptop a central part of your home entertainment centre. It does this using the 3D Comb, which is a pre-processing filter that takes in your video signal and separates the colour and brightness - in current technology these remain a single signal - allowing for them to be individually manipulated. It is believed that Avivo then cleans the image, taking out the “snowy effects” of poor signals, resulting in a cleaner image.

We’re not likely to see this technology in a laptop until next year but as a view to what is coming, it means the laptop will become an increasingly important part of the home theatre market.