AMD Live! is the name of AMD's initiative in 2005 aimed at gathering the support of professional musicians and other media producers behind its hardware products. The primary focus of this initiative was the Opteron server- and workstation-class central processing units (CPUs).
AMD subsequently extended AMD LIVE! into a platform marketing initiative focusing the consumer electronics segment in 2006 and focused on performance segment desktop-class processors. AMD Live! for consumer electronics segment was announced on January 4, 2006 officially through press release.
The AMD Live! is an initiative, which can be divided into two parts, one in terms of software and the other, computer hardware. The software portion focuses on users' internet and multimedia experiences, while the hardware sector focuses on the ability of a system to handle multimedia files and the convergence of consumer electronics (CE) and personal computing (PC) into one computer chassis.
AMD Live! features away mode (as supported by motherboards), the system hibernates when user is not using, and powers up quickly when needed. The AMD Live! also includes a selection of software aimed to enhance the digital entertainment experience named as AMD LIVE! Entertainment Suite, see software section for details.
According to AMD, the minimum requirements of an AMD LIVE! PC platform are as follows:
AMD announced the AMD LIVE! will feature support for Blu-rays and HD DVDs in third quarter of 2007. [1] [2]
Announced in CES 2007, the AMD LIVE! Notebook PC requires:
Originally launched at CES in 2007, AMD LIVE! Home Cinema was a platform that combines the functionality of a PC with that of a Home Theater system that integrates a high performance amplifier (up to 5.1 channels) allowing owners to access and store high definition content such as movies and broadcasts, along with DVR/PVR functionality, photos and slide slows, music and internet content out of a single device.
AMD has also pushed an MCE system design named "AMD Home Cinema B media center", which is a collaborative project with MCE system builders, including AMD hardware (AMD processors, ATI Radeon graphics with hardware High-definition video decoding) and pre-installed with Windows Vista Home Premium, and AMD branded chassis (manufactured by ACE computers), to be released in 2007. [3]
The AMD LIVE! Home Cinema system has the following specifications:
Systems including the MSI Media LIVE Bermuda and Asus BVI reference design, Alienware, and ASUS.
AMD's latest product in this line up is the "Maui" platform. Working in conjunction with Intersil's D2Audio and MSI, one of the productized version of the platform became the MSI's Media Live Diva platform.
The platform has the following updated specifications:
The MSI Media Live Diva platform involve the integration of the DAE-3 chip into the motherboard design. This allows MSI to offer this platform with either a 5 channel amplifier add in card or a 7 channel pre amplifier add in card.
Another item announced in CES 2007 is the AMD LIVE! Media Server, systems including the HP MediaSmart Media server.
Specifications including:
Announced in CES 2008, the AMD LIVE! Ultra PC and the AMD LIVE! Ultra notebook PC utilizes a complete high-end AMD platform which complies with the codenamed Spider/Cartwheel desktop platform or the codenamed Puma mobile platform, what differs from the previous systems is that the requirement for in-house graphics products became mandatory while the system requires more high-end and more powerful products, but the other requirements of the AMD LIVE! Ultra PC remained the same as the others. A new better by design sticker for AMD LIVE! Ultra PC was also released.
The specifications of the system including:
A selection of software to provide additional features to enhance online multimedia experiences, listed as follows:
Several additional software and services were announced in CES 2007, listed below:
Back in AMD Technology Analyst Day 2007, AMD had shown a prototype of a centralized GUI for AMD LIVE! for easy control and management of AMD LIVE! exclusive contents. The software was later named as AMD LIVE! Explorer and the beta testing version was released during CES 2008 and available for download. [5] The software features a centralized "Live! mode" 3D panorama interface called "Carousel" for browsing images, albums and videos as thumbnails. The application also includes an embedded browser, with picture-in-picture mode for watching videos while surfing the web at the same time.
Prior to the beginning of CeBIT 2007 in Hanover, Germany on March 15, 2007, AMD has announced the "AMD LIVE! ready" program, for other peripherals or system components, items which are certified for AMD Live! systems can include the AMD LIVE! Ready program logo (shown on the right) on the package to allow customers to identify the products recommended for AMD LIVE! systems.
Some of the supporting companies including Gigabyte Technology, Buffalo Technology, Corel Corporation, Creative Technology, D-Link Systems, Nero AG, Netgear, NVIDIA, Orb Networks, Seagate, TerraTec, and ZyXEL. [6]
Product categories in the AMD LIVE! Ready program include:
The announcement of Active TV initiative has also taken place prior to CeBIT 2007, the initiative allows online video watching such as YouTube, ROO, Veoh and VMIX, allowing users to create customized "TV-web channels", and provide to hardware developers a "value-added" solution as software that is embedded on networked entertainment devices, such as HDTVs, set-top-boxes, and game consoles. Active TV software can for example be loaded on a game CD for a game console, such as the home network connected PS2 (provided by BroadQ [7] ). The console then pulls video, music, and image content from the Internet, via a networked PC running Active TV software. [7] [8] The support of such functions for Xbox 360 and Wii platforms is projected at a later time.
AMD has started a webpage about the initiative and provided a simulator for Windows XP and Vista download. (Active-TV page)
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets.
ATI Technologies Inc. was a Canadian semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technology Inc., the company listed publicly in 1993 and was acquired by AMD in 2006. As a major fabrication-less or fabless semiconductor company, ATI conducted research and development in-house and outsourced the manufacturing and assembly of its products. With the decline and eventual bankruptcy of 3dfx in 2000, ATI and its chief rival Nvidia emerged as the two dominant players in the graphics processors industry, eventually forcing other manufacturers into niche roles.
Radeon is a brand of computer products, including graphics processing units, random-access memory, RAM disk software, and solid-state drives, produced by Radeon Technologies Group, a division of AMD. The brand was launched in 2000 by ATI Technologies, which was acquired by AMD in 2006 for US$5.4 billion.
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AMD Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), formerly known as Fusion, is a series of 64-bit microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), combining a general-purpose AMD64 central processing unit (CPU) and 3D integrated graphics processing unit (IGPU) on a single die.
The AMD 700 chipset series is a set of chipsets designed by ATI for AMD Phenom processors to be sold under the AMD brand. Several members were launched in the end of 2007 and the first half of 2008, others launched throughout the rest of 2008.
The AMD 690 chipset series is an integrated graphics chipset family which was developed and manufactured by AMD subsidiary ATI for both AMD and Intel platforms focusing on both desktop and mobile computing markets. The corresponding chipset for the Intel platform has a marketing name of Radeon Xpress 1200 series.
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The Evergreen series is a family of GPUs developed by Advanced Micro Devices for its Radeon line under the ATI brand name. It was employed in Radeon HD 5000 graphics card series and competed directly with Nvidia's GeForce 400 Series.
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The HP Pavilion dv2 was a series of 12" notebooks manufactured by Hewlett-Packard Company.
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Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) is a cross-vendor set of specifications that allow for the integration of central processing units and graphics processors on the same bus, with shared memory and tasks. The HSA is being developed by the HSA Foundation, which includes AMD and ARM. The platform's stated aim is to reduce communication latency between CPUs, GPUs and other compute devices, and make these various devices more compatible from a programmer's perspective, relieving the programmer of the task of planning the moving of data between devices' disjoint memories.
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Imageon was a series of media coprocessors and mobile chipsets produced by ATI in 2002–2008, providing graphics acceleration and other multimedia features for handheld devices such as mobile phones and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). AMD later sold the Imageon mobile handheld graphics division to Qualcomm in 2009, where it was used exclusively inside their Snapdragon SoC processors under the Adreno brand name.
Video Code Engine is AMD's video encoding application-specific integrated circuit implementing the video codec H.264/MPEG-4 AVC. Since 2012 it was integrated into all of their GPUs and APUs except Oland.