Targeting the rapidly growing needs of business professionals and home users in online communication and Web entertainment, Matrox Graphics Inc. today announced the Matrox Millennium G550 graphics card, the first and only volume-priced graphics card to add the acceleration of high-resolution rich media over low- bandwidth connections to cutting edge graphics capabilities.

The Millennium G550 graphics card features the new Matrox G550 chip equipped with Matrox’s powerful new HeadCasting engine. The HeadCasting Engine uniquely accelerates high-resolution, life-like facial animations over low-bandwidth Internet connections through an extended hardware implementation of Microsoft’s DirectX 8 Vertex Shader . The HeadCasting engine enables Visual Online Communication, which enhances a number of business and entertainment-focused applications, such as Instant Messaging, Virtual Presentations and Customer Relationship Management. "With the explosion that's occurring in the online communication market, the Millennium G550 is perfectly timed to offer users a dynamic new solution for boosting real-world applications," said Dan Wood, vice president of technical marketing, Matrox Graphics Inc. "The HeadCasting technology brings an entire new dimension to communication."

The Millennium G550 DualHead board is an AGP 4X device equipped with 32 MB of fast Double Data Rate (DDR) memory. The board includes an integrated DVI-I output and extends Matrox’s lead in DualHead enabled graphics solutions with true multi-display support for Microsoft Windows 2000 and the latest eDualHead features. The DualHead display capabilities of the Millennium G550 offer tremendous flexibility with one DVI-I output and one HD-15 output on the bracket with adaptors to convert the DVI to HD-15 and the HD-15 to composite or S-video. Matrox’s unique DualHead DVDMax mode provides the highest quality DVD playback and now supports streaming video playback over the Internet for a truly immersive Internet experience.

The Millennium G550 is based on the Matrox G550’s powerful 2D/3D engine, which offers improved 3D performance and the world’s fastest Windows desktop acceleration. The 360 MHz UltraSharp RAMDAC pumps out super-crisp 2D image quality at resolutions up to 2048 x1536 at the highest color depths and refresh rates making it the premier product on the market for 2D workstation users. Incorporating trusted design and features, the new Matrox G550 is fully supported by Matrox-pioneered unified driver architecture to lower total cost of ownership.

The Matrox G550 is a powerful 3D accelerator, which—in addition to the visionary HeadCasting engine—expands on the G450 to enable the rendering of two dual- textured pixels per clock. The Matrox G550 also supports single pass trilinear and anisotropic filtering, as well as continued support for Environment Mapped Bump Mapping (EMBM), which is now supported in over 40 shipping game titles.

About Visual Online Communication

HeadCasting targets mainstream business professionals and home PC users who use the Internet as an efficient means of sharing information, communicating with business contacts, and keeping in touch with friends and family Rich media, such as the use of video, animation and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is expected to grow substantially in the near future. According to IDC, 16.5 billion VoIP minutes will be logged in 2001 and this is expected to grow to 432.8 billion minutes by 2005. Additionally, Aberdeen Research estimates there are approximately 150 million people who currently use either Internet chat or instant messaging—all markets which will benefit from adding a visual dimension to their Internet communication. With its HeadCasting engine, the Millennium G550 is uniquely equipped to accelerate graphics over the Internet and to propel the adoption of a new visual interface for such current and popular Web- communication applications.

In order to unleash the benefits of the HeadCasting engine, Matrox has developed key strategic and exclusive partnerships with software providers such as Digimask and LIPSinc as well as developing value added application software in house. Digimask technology allows users to create a 3D replica of their own heads obtained from only two photographs (front and side views). LIPSinc’s technology converts voice data into 3D facial and lip deformations in real time, which are then accelerated by the HeadCasting engine to render life-like animated talking heads. Using tools from LIPSinc and Digimask, Matrox has developed a unique application to enable high quality remote presentations: the Matrox Virtual Presenter for Microsoft PowerPoint software. The Matrox Virtual Presenter software is optimized for Matrox HeadCasting and DualHead display and enables users to author and distribute PowerPoint presentations enhanced by slide-synchronized audio delivered by either a photo-realistic talking head of the author or a cartoon character.

HeadFone, created by LIPSinc, is a real-time, peer-to-peer application that gives a face to online communication. Similar to instant messaging, HeadFone uses talking digital characters for real-time interaction with voice instead of text. Users simply choose a head, whether it’s a photo-realistic head, a cartoon character, or even a dog, connect online and talk with their “Fonie” buddies. HeadFone is built on LIPSinc’s core technology, which uses human or synthesized voice to drive the lip synchronization and corresponding facial animation of digital characters. Users across the world will be able to connect live and “in persona” with HeadFone, which functions in both high- and low-bandwidth environments.

“Once again, Matrox has developed an innovative technology that exceeds the expectations of existing customers as well as targets the needs of evolving markets,” said Dan Wood, vice president of technical marketing, Matrox Graphics Inc. “By enabling Visual Instant Messaging, Visual VoIP, Visual Customer Relationship Management applications, and Visual remote corporate training, Matrox is revolutionizing online communication and turning rich media from a bandwidth issue into a graphics processing issue.”

Software Bundle

The Matrox Millennium G550’s software package includes the Digimask System by Digimask, HeadFone - Matrox HeadCasting Edition by LIPSinc, Matrox Virtual Presenter for PowerPoint, and the Matrox Software DVD player. Availability The Matrox Millennium G550 is designed for SI and OEM integration, and retail distribution. The retail version will be available from Matrox’s online store at www.shopmatrox.com in CQ3 ’01 for US $125 ESP. The Evolution of DualHead Launched in 1999, DualHead technology supported eight different display configurations and consisted of five modes: Clone, DVDMax, Multi-Display, TV Output, and Zoom. A year later, second-generation DualHead expanded on these features with the addition of Matrox Multi-Desktop, Snapshot, Multi-Zoom and DVD playback on a monitor—an alternative to the original secondary output to TV. Now, with third generation DualHead, Matrox dual display technology evolves even further to include true multi-display support in Windows 2000, improved usability features, such as access to all modes without rebooting, and the eDualHead browser-enhancement suite designed to power e-business and the Web. For detailed information about DualHead, visit the All about DualHead section on our Web site at www.matrox.com/mga/dualhead/home.cfm

Take a look at what the G550 look like here