Zenverge Announces Groundbreaking Advance in Digital HD Convergence

Revolutionary New Architecture is Industry's First to Support Transcoding, Encoding and Decoding at up to 4 Times HD Performance; offers unprecedented content interoperability, access, and storage

CUPERTINO, Calif., Dec 11, 2008 -- Zenverge, a developer of Advanced Media ICs, introduced today the Zenverge Entertainment Nexus (ZEN), a groundbreaking new architecture for digital HD convergence. Implemented in a family of single-chip Advanced Media ICs, this new technology is the first to support transcoding, decoding and encoding of multiple formats at up to 4 times HD performance or up to four simultaneous HD streams. By leveraging advanced patent-pending algorithms and a highly optimized pipeline, this elegant architecture delivers unprecedented media processing capabilities in a highly compact, easy-to-use and power-efficient footprint.

The new ZEN architecture was developed to address consumers' escalating interest in the convergence of their digital media content as adoption rates for HDTVs, DVRs, Internet TV and portable media skyrocket. By offering a single, flexible, easy-to-implement technology that addresses the most demanding performance requirements of digital convergence, ZEN promises users uncompromised seamless access to content and services across HDTVs, DVRs, Blu-ray recorders, set-top boxes, PCs, cell phones and Portable Media Players (PMPs).

ZEN's unprecedented performance and unique features enable consumer media applications that were previously infeasible or impractical such as:

• Distribute multiple HD channels with integrated, independently rendered channel guides from a single server so that service providers can deliver a true multi-room, multi-TV experience to consumers without the need for an expensive set-top box at each TV
• Efficiently record and simultaneously play back multiple HD channels at once or convert HD data for playback on devices that support a different format
• Modify the content bitrate of multiple HD channels to increase storage, or to meet the limitations of available network bandwidth and enable a seamless viewing experience even at low bitrates
• Transform content at high speeds for storage and playback on portable devices through a secure wired or wireless connection to a DVR
• Perform high density and high quality encoding and transcoding at professional cable/satellite headends and IPTV video switches

"The exciting proliferation of connected digital media devices and services has created an explosion of complexity for today's system designers and service providers," says Amir Mobini, chief executive officer of Zenverge. "Until now they have had to resort to large, power-hungry media and network processors with limited capabilities. Because ZEN combines high performance media processing, error-resilient networking and DRM functions in a single chip, designers can easily and cost-effectively create true HD convergence by adding ZEN to millions of products over the next few years and, in the process, enable a host of new applications for the consumer."

Industry-leading Innovation

The ZEN architecture leverages Zenverge's extensive expertise in algorithm and ASIC design. Unlike competitive approaches, it delivers unprecedented performance and efficiency by using a single high-performance hardware acceleration pipeline that is programmable at the module level. By taking advantage of the functional commonalities in encoding and decoding as well as different compression formats, this new patent-pending architecture delivers unrivaled performance levels capable of supporting up to four HD streams. Moreover, this performance scales with the resolution of each stream, thus supporting up to forty times real-time performance at portable device resolutions.

The ZEN architecture is implemented in a new family of Advanced Media ICs. The ZEN1 family includes three devices with varying capabilities, including seamless media networking, at different price points. All three devices in the product line offer complete multi-HD transcoding, encoding and decoding capabilities in a single chip solution that delivers dramatic savings in PCB footprint, end-to-end system cost and power dissipation relative to existing solutions. The ZEN1 family is now available for sampling to select customers.

About Zenverge

Founded in 2005, Zenverge is a fabless semiconductor company devoted to accelerating consumer access to next generation digital content and services. The company is a leading developer of Advanced Media ICs built around the patented ZEN architecture, a core technology for next generation digital media devices. The privately held company is based in Cupertino, California, and is backed by world-class investors. For more information please visit the company website: http://www.zenverge.com.