Sharp Launches New BD Recorder Products for Ultra

TORONTO, ON --(Marketwired - March 09, 2017) - ViXS Systems Inc. ( TSX : VXS ), a pioneer and leader in media processing solutions, today announced that Sharp Corporation, a leading Japanese multinational company that designs and manufactures consumer electronic products, has launched three new BD Recorder products for Ultra HD Blu-ray based on the XCode 6800 and XCode 5190 System on Chips (SoCs). Sharp's AQUOS Blu-ray BD-UT3100, BD-UT2100 and BD-UT1100 include support for 4K Ultra HD 60 frames per second (fps), high luminance High Dynamic Range (HDR), and wide color space "BT.2020" high quality video playback. The three AQUOS Blu-ray product models are expected to be available in retail stores in Japan by March 24, 2017.

The AQUOS Blu-ray BD-UT series product line supports the next generation Ultra HD Blu-ray standard including the newest video compression format HEVC (H.265) up to 100Mbps video playback. As well, this product includes a new high speed processing 4K Master BD-PRO Engine speeding up the load time of 4K Ultra 60 fps Blu-ray content to provide an overall enhanced user experience. With over 160 Ultra HD Blu-ray HDR titles released to date and as Ultra HD HDR TV sales continue to increase exponentially, the timely release of this Ultra HD Blu-ray product from Sharp is instrumental in taking advantage of this hot market.

In addition to the decoding and display of native 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray content, the Sharp AQUOS Blu-ray includes three broadcast tuners for ISDB-T, BS and CS110 terrestrial and satellite broadcast reception. Since these products are designed be used in conjunction with 4K Ultra HD HDR televisions, High Definition (HD) content from the broadcast tuners are up-converted to 4K Ultra HD at 60 fps enhancing the user experience when viewing broadcast content. Additionally, a unique feature of the AQUOS Blu-ray products include having the broadcast Electronic Program Guide (EPG) displayed at a 4K Ultra HD resolution providing more precise captioning and additional graphical/media based program information.

By using the XCode™ 6800 as the UHD BD/ROM controller together with the XCode™ 5100 as the tightly integrated dense transcoder, the new AQUOS Blu-ray products achieve superior simultaneous operation of recording of up to three HD broadcast channels at the same time as UHD 4K playback. Further, the modular design architecture of the XCode platform provides platform flexibility for both quicker time-to-market and feature differentiation. In addition, the XCode platform enables the reuse of the firmware so that rich development efforts can be leveraged across any new product family choices.

"We are proud to be a vital part of this commercial launch by our long-time partner Sharp, a premier consumer electronics company. The XCode™ 6800 is the leading 12-bit UHD decoder product for feature rich consumer applications, and the use of our chips in a UHD Blu-ray™ application, with a tier-1 player such as Sharp, positions the XCode 6800 as the flagship SoC for this commercial segment", said Perry Chappell, Vice President of Marketing and Sales, ViXS Systems. "We believe that by taking advantage of the unique features and architecture that our XCode 6800 and 5190 SoCs offer, Sharp has been able to launch an innovative, best-in-class consumer video product to stand out from the competition."

Sharp, and AQUOS are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sharp Corporation and/or its affiliated entities and are used under sub-license in the United States by Hisense USA Corporation. Blu-ray™ is a trade mark, and logo owned by the Blu-ray Disk Association (BDA).

About ViXS Systems Inc. ViXS is a pioneer and market leader in designing revolutionary media processing semiconductor solutions for video over IP streaming solutions, with approximately 500 patents issued and pending worldwide, numerous industry awards for innovation, and over 33 million media processors shipped to date. ViXS is driving the transition to Ultra HD 4K across the entire content value chain by providing professional and consumer grade chipsets that support the new High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard up to Main 12 Profile, reducing bandwidth consumption by 50% while providing the depth of color and image clarity needed to take advantage of higher-resolution content. ViXS' XCodePro 300 family is ideal for Ultra HD 4K infrastructure equipment, and the XCode 6000 family of system-on-chip (SoC) products achieve unprecedented levels of integration that enable manufacturers to create cost-effective consumer entertainment devices.

ViXS is headquartered in Toronto, Canada with offices in Europe, Asia and North America. VIXS ^™ , the ViXS ^® logo, XCode ^® , XCodePro™, XConnex™ and Xtensiv™ are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of ViXS. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. For more information on ViXS, visit our website: www.vixs.com .