Digital Entertainment Experiences Made Simpler With New AMD LIVE!(TM) Ready Program
Active TV Solutions Enable Internet Video on Your TV, Courtesy of Your PC
HANNOVER, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
In partnership with entertainment technology leaders, AMD (NYSE:AMD) today announced the AMD LIVE!(TM) Ready program, an ecosystem branding initiative designed to provide consumers with greater choice and simplicity for seamless enjoyment of their personal photos, videos and music, as well as popular videos from the Internet. The new AMD LIVE! Ready program is designed to easily identify various devices and software that best complete the AMD LIVE! digital entertainment and media experience.
"As more and more consumers embrace the AMD LIVE! solution, we continue to reduce complexity and move technology out of the way for a more delightful consumer experience," said Joe Menard, corporate vice president of AMD's Consumer Business. "We are excited to leverage our open-platform approach and collaborate with industry leaders to help simplify hardware and software choices for consumers' digital entertainment."
With the AMD LIVE! Ready logo, consumers now have a quick and easy way to select components that work best with their AMD LIVE! desktop and notebook PCs, AMD LIVE! Home Cinema and AMD LIVE! Home Media Server, helping them build a robust digital media ecosystem. Products that will carry the logo include portable media players, network devices, software, TV tuners, storage solutions, web cameras, set-top boxes and digital media adapters.
"The AMD LIVE! solution provides consumers with an easy way to interact, control and enjoy their digital entertainment experiences," said Dale Pistilli, director of business development for Logitech's Control Device Business Unit. "As a leading provider of personal peripherals for the digital home, Logitech is looking forward to participating in the AMD LIVE! Ready program and helping to revolutionize the way people enjoy their digital content both inside their homes and remotely."
"As a leading manufacturer of network-enabled set-top boxes, Worldsat applauds AMD for providing consumers with access to their digital content anytime and anywhere," said Laurent Festor, deputy director of Worldsat. "Over the years, Worldsat has made a concerted effort to work closely with partners like AMD to ensure a seamless and simple digital media experience in and around the home, and we are pleased to partner in the AMD LIVE! Ready effort to truly transform the television experience with Active TV solutions."
AMD is working with leading technology partners to support new and innovative models for delivering the best digital experience to consumers through the AMD LIVE! Ready program. As part of this open ecosystem initiative, AMD is taking a leadership role to provide consumers with more interactivity and choice in their TV viewing experience.
Active TV Solutions
Consumers are watching billions of video streams on their PCs every month. Leveraging the power and performance of the AMD LIVE! PC, AMD is working with various industry suppliers to help consumers display and share those same video streams on the TV with a portfolio of Active TV solutions that extend the PC to the TV.
Active TV solutions allow consumers to stream broadcast and broadband entertainment content from the PC to the TV, offering an enjoyable "living room" viewing experience with the convenience of a remote control. To deliver this capability, AMD is establishing partnerships in an open ecosystem of set-top box and game console manufacturers, middleware providers and content aggregators to deliver Active TV-enabled hardware and software solutions as part of the AMD LIVE! Ready program.
AMD and an ecosystem of suppliers will make various Active TV solutions available to purchasers of new AMD LIVE! PCs and AMD LIVE! Ready branded set-top boxes, TVs and other devices. AMD and collaborators such as Kjaerulff, Dream Multimedia, WorldSat and BroadQ also intend to make the Active TV capability available to existing PC owners under the AMD LIVE! Ready brand.
In addition to streaming videos from the PC to the TV, the Active TV capability enabled by a powerful media center PC, allows consumers to create customized "TV-web channels" and distribute them to televisions around the home, aggregating video favorites from popular media sharing web sites such as YouTube, ROO, Veoh and VMIX.
"Honda's aim is to excite and intrigue potential customers in order to gain interest and encourage them to engage with our brand. Increasingly we are looking beyond traditional spot advertising to create this effect," said Ian Armstrong, communications manager, Honda UK. "Having successfully launched our TV channel, we want to further extend our coverage, giving potential viewers the opportunity to watch our channel on TV as well as the web. We are delighted that Active TV solutions help us reach more viewers."
While Active TV solutions are open to any PC platform, they are best experienced on a PC based on multi-core technology, such as an AMD LIVE! PC. By leveraging the additional processor core, consumers are better able to format and deliver Internet content to the television.
Availability
Active TV-enabled set-top boxes and related software are currently available in Europe from Kjaerulff1 and Dream Multimedia. Other leading manufacturers are expected to introduce AMD LIVE! Ready devices and Active TV solutions in Europe and North America by the second half 2007.
Some AMD LIVE! Ready solutions that support Active TV features are being demonstrated at CeBIT this week in AMD's booth in Hall 2, Booth #D35.
About AMD
Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:AMD) is a leading global provider of innovative processing solutions in the computing, graphics and consumer electronics markets. AMD is dedicated to driving open innovation, choice and industry growth by delivering superior customer-centric solutions that empower consumers and businesses worldwide. For more information, visit www.amd.com.
(C)2007 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD, AMD LIVE!, the AMD Arrow logo, and combinations thereof, are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Addendum Quote Sheet: Ecosystem Support
"Consumers want to enjoy their media and the rich content experience of the Internet in the comfort of their living room on their home entertainment system," said Stacy Cook, CEO of BroadQ. "BroadQ is developing the next generation in television entertainment and we are excited to be part of the Active TV solutions driven by AMD."
"We are proud to be an active participant of the AMD LIVE! Ready program in our capacity as a leading provider of digital home networking solutions," said Gerardine Lynch, product marketing manager at Buffalo Technology. "We see this as a positive step towards ensuring our customers have a platform that unites multiple entertainment options into a single manageable platform, providing an enjoyable immersive entertainment experience for all."
"We are pleased to participate in the AMD LIVE! Ready ecosystem," said Blaine Mathieu, general manager of digital media at Corel. "As a leading provider of advanced digital video and audio multimedia software products, we strive to provide consumers with simple solutions to capture, edit, author, burn, distribute and play personal digital video files."
"From our Sound Blaster X-Fi sound cards to our ZEN Vision:M and ZEN Vision W portable media players, Creative offers an exciting selection of digital entertainment experiences with AMD LIVE!," said Sargon Eshagh, vice president of sales for Creative. "The AMD LIVE! Ready ecosystem helps ensure that consumers can easily identify the products to match their digital lifestyle."
"With the introduction of the AMD LIVE! Ready program, AMD has initiated yet another positive step toward optimizing consumers' digital entertainment experience," said Daniel Kelley, director of marketing at D-Link Systems, Inc. "As industry leaders in broadband and network connectivity for the digital home, we are committed to taking digital media enthusiasts to a level they've never seen before."
"Active TV represents the future of interactive television viewing and we support this leading-edge technology," said Alpaslan Karasu, spokesman at Dream Multimedia. "Our high-performance Dreamboxes are compatible with this technology and interoperate with other products in the home to provide consumers with the best in versatility and compatibility."
"The Active TV ecosystem will transform TV usage in much the same way as Skype has changed telephone usage," said Jesper Kargaard, chief technology officer, Futarque. "We see the addition of networking as a strong trend in the TV industry. Consequently, we are adding Active TV solutions into several of our customers' TV and set-top box products to enable them to access TV-web channels across the Internet."
"AMD continues to innovate in-the-home entertainment market and remains focused on customers' needs. We look forward to playing a larger part in expanding the media entertainment experience with our wide range of WinTV tuners," said Yehia Oweiss, vice president of sales, EMEA at Hauppauge Digital. "The AMD LIVE! Ready program is a great way for consumers to select the devices best suited to their digital entertainment needs."
"Kjaerulff 1 is proud to partner with AMD to make Active TV a living room reality for our customers," said Karsten Kjaerulff, owner and managing director at Kjaerulff 1. "The introduction of this feature to enable the formatting and distribution of TV-web content is poised to revolutionize the TV viewing experience and we support AMD's commitment to consistently deliver best-in-class performance for the changing face of digital media entertainment."
"MediaMall Technologies is pleased to help AMD drive widespread adoption of popular Internet video services on the television screen," said Jeff Lawrence, president and CEO, MediaMall. "With MediaMall acting as the 'PC-to-TV glue,' and AMD64 dual-core processors providing the power, we are enabling the delivery of compelling web channels from the Home PC to the television via Active TV devices."
"Nero shares AMD's passion for providing consumers the smartest choices for their digital entertainment needs," said John Tafoya, general manager, Global Alliances at Nero. "By participating in the AMD LIVE! Ready program, we look forward to helping consumers build and optimize their digital experience."
"AMD has provided a stellar example of customer-centric philosophy by enhancing the AMD LIVE! solution with a surrounding ecosystem of hardware and software products that support it," said Vivek Pathela, vice president of marketing at Netgear. "As a leading producer of performance networking products, we look forward to the AMD LIVE! Ready program helping us address the growing customer demands in digital entertainment."
"NVIDIA and AMD are committed to delivering consumers the best video and graphics experience on the PC," said Scott Vouri, general manager of multimedia products at NVIDIA. "The AMD LIVE! Ready program combined with NVIDIA PureVideo technology and high-resolution graphics will give consumers outstanding digital home PC solutions."
"With Active TV, AMD and its partners can bring consumers the possibility to expand and redefine what the television experience means, and Orb helps puts the consumer in the driver's seat of that revolution," said Herve Utheza, vice president and general manager, TV Properties, Orb Networks.
"AMD LIVE! Ready not only provides consumers the convenience of easily identifying products that can enhance their digital experience, but also gives them the option to choose from a wide range of best-of-breed technologies within the AMD LIVE! ecosystem," said Marc Noblitt, senior market development manager at Seagate. "We are pleased to support this visionary program with our high-performance and high-capacity disk drive technology."
"Active TV is creating new opportunities for digital eCommerce for consumers, such as the ability to place bids on eBay from your TV, previously only available on a PC," said Christoph Buenger, CEO & founder of Scendix Software, Inc. "In supporting Active TV solutions, we are helping AMD drive adoption through promotion of easy-to-use interfaces and menus accessible with a TV remote control. As a leading company for developing software solutions for the digital home, we are proud to offer our services to any company willing to be part of this new exciting platform."
"Active TV is creating a new dimension of digital entertainment for consumers, offering the ability to view content previously only available on a PC," said Christof Winker, founder and CEO of Set-Top-Box expert, TeleGent GmbH. "By supporting Active TV solutions with EVO, our innovative IP-enabled hybrid set-top box system platform, we look forward to expanding Active TV's footprint in the consumer electronics marketplace, adding another great value for our own OEM customers and, last but not least, providing consumers the richest digital entertainment experience possible."
"TerraTec's cooperation with AMD is founded on our mutual goal to satisfy the ever-evolving demands of our customers and offer them more choice," said Heiko Meertz, general manager at TerraTec. "We see this partnership as an important step toward ensuring simpler choices for consumers seeking an extra edge in their digital entertainment experience."
"The AMD LIVE! Ready Program is the latest in a series of cutting-edge innovations enabled by AMD technology," said Zak Wood, senior marketing manager at TRENDnet. "As a part of this powerful ecosystem of industry leaders, we are leveraging our globally recognized networking brand to help consumers experience high-performance TRENDnet networks in their digital home."
"The Web as we know it is intended for access from personal computers, yet the recent explosive growth of Web videos combined with consumers desire to access those videos from their TV, makes it evident that a solution to bridge the gap between Web content and TVs is very much needed," said Ronen Mizrahi, president and CEO TVersity Inc. "We, in TVersity, are very excited to be working with AMD on their Active TV solution, one of the few out there that aims to bridge this gap by creating an open ecosystem where partners can prosper side by side with AMD."
"AMD has taken a significant step toward improving the way consumers choose their digital entertainment devices," said Yosi Brosh, vice president of sales and marketing at VBox Communications. "We look forward to being a part of this powerful extended-PC AMD LIVE! Ready network of entertainment devices. VBox Cat's Eye HD receivers and the future release of Secure Cat's Eye receivers for reception of PayTV channels complement AMD LIVE! Ready perfectly."
"As a popular source of creative video and audio content, VMIX Media is pleased to be working hand-in-hand with AMD as a trusted partner to help bring new web channels to the television via Active TV," said Greg Kostello, CEO and founder of VMIX Media. "With Active TV solutions, consumers can now watch VMIX.com online channels on their home TVs at the click of a button. We look forward to working with AMD to help bring VMIX's unique blend of content to consumers everywhere."
"Our focus is the development of video on demand content for our advertising clients," said Andrew Howells, managing partner, Zype. "Having already created Honda's TV channel on an IPTV platform, we were keen to work with AMD on Active TV to broaden the viewer base in the U.K. and elsewhere. This gave us the opportunity to redesign the channel for television so viewers can easily access the content using their remote control."
"ZyXEL has designed a broad range of products that make it easy for consumers to store and share media over a connected digital home," said Munira Brooks, senior vice president of sales, marketing and business development at ZyXEL. "We share with AMD a common commitment to consumers to provide technology products that open new worlds of possibilities for the Digital Home. AMD LIVE! Ready takes that commitment one step further by making it easier to choose performance enhancements that are integral to an immersive digital media experience."
Source: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Released March 14, 2007