San Jose, California-based Radius Inc and Sigma Designs Inc have entered into an exclusive licence agreement that enables Radius to develop a Macintosh-compatible version of Sigma Designs’ ReelMagic MPEG playback controller. Sigma Designs will supply key technology and components required to develop the new Mac board. The first consumer-priced multimedia playback controller for the personal computer, ReelMagic displays more than 32,000 colours at resolution up to 1,024 by 768 at 30 frames per second, enabling real-time interaction with video sequences from a standard CD-ROM. ReelMagic also supports full 16-bit, CD-quality stereo audio completely synchronised with video. Radius and Sigma Designs will port Sigma’s Application Programming Interface so software titles developed for personal computer-compatible systems also can be played on Macintosh systems. Specifications, pricing, and distribution plans will be given ahead of first ships, expected to be in the spring.
