TCL and Intel Sign Strategic Cooperation Agreement to Develop Next Generation Internet TV

BEIJING — The 2008 Intel Consumer Electronics Industry Summit and Signing Ceremony for the Intel-TCL Strategic Cooperation Agreement was held today in Beijing. Yang Xu, General Manager of Intel China (NASDAQ:INTC), and Han Qing, Vice President of TCL Multimedia Technology Holdings Limited (ShenZhen:000100) and General Manager of TCL China Business Center, signed a Memorandum of Cooperation to announce that the two parties will co-develop the next-generation Internet TV and jointly promote the integration of Internet and TV to bring a more comprehensive television experience to domestic consumers.

“Under current economic conditions, we need to enhance innovation and conduct more cooperative initiatives. This was our intention when we cooperated with our partners to co-host the consumer electronics industry summit in the first place,” said Eric Kim, Intel Corporation Senior Vice President and General Manager of Digital Home Group, “Intel is committed to promoting Internet technologies and dedicated to improving the television experience by bringing a brand-new digital life experience to its consumers. Through comprehensive cooperation with Chinese home-grown consumer electronics giant like TCL, we believe we can co-develop more and more new products and application modes to meet market needs and boost the development of the consumer electronics industry in China and the world.”

“TCL appreciates Intel’s vision in the consumer electronics field, and this is the basis for our cooperation. Innovation has always been at the core of TCL’s development strategy. With innovation in mind, TCL will collabrate with Intel to provide optimum application experiences to consumers and jointly promote the use of new application models and the popularity of the industrial innovation, ” said TCL’s Chairman Li Dongsheng.

According to the memorandum, Intel and TCL will join hands to develop and promote televisions capable of accessing the Internet, and provide more TV programs as well as opportunities for users to communicate and interact with one another. At the same time, the two parties will closely cooperate with respective industrial partners to promote electronic products capable of accessing the Internet to allow more households to experience the joy of digital life.

At the summit, Intel displayed the development roadmap of its consumer electronics platform and introduced in detail its first Intel® Architecture-based SOC product, Intel® media processor CE 3100 (codenamed “Canmore”). CE3100 is specially developed for consumer electronic devices that support Internet access, such as disc players, premium cable set-top boxes and digital TVs, as well as other networked consumer electronics devices.

Industry insiders explained that as China has entered the WEB2.0 era, shared information and the Internet have become indispensible parts of daily life and work, and the television is gradually replacing the PC as a new platform of massive information from these media. Improved IPTV technology will help transform traditional TV media into Home Entertainment Media Centers. As leading manufacturers in consumer electronics and chip technologies, TCL and Intel will leverage their cooperation to set off a new round of innovation in the domestic consumer electronics industry.

In recent years, TCL Corporation has engaged in the development of Internet-based intelligent consumer electronics and intelligent household technologies and has closely cooperated with leading industrial companies like Intel and industrial alliances to promote the innovative development of industrial technologies. In 2003, TCL and Intel co-established a joint 3C laboratory to develop new technologies and products based on 3C convergence. With the aim of dedicating in 3C convergence and to develop a new generation of Internet-based consumer electronic products, the TCL Industry Research Institute was founded in 2005 and launched two versions of Internet entertainment-based set-top box products to integrate technical licensing, production and marketing. In July 2008, TCL was elected as presidential member of the newly-established China Digital Home Industry Alliance. In October, TCL initiated and co-founded the Production, Academics and Research Innovation Alliance for Internet Intelligent Consumer Electronics.

CE3100 An Innovative TV Experience: Intel® Media Processor CE 3100

As the first Intel Architecture-based SOC product, Intel® media processor CE 3100 (codenamed “Canmore”) is specially developed for consumer electronic devices that support Internet access, such as disc players, premium cable set-top boxes and digital TVs, and other consumer electronic devices with support for Internet access. As a highly integrated chipset, it provides decoding and playback of high-definition videos, support for 7.1 channel home theater audio systems and smooth 3D graphics.

The Intel® media processor CE 3100 also employs Intel® media play technology for coordination with hardware decoders for playing TV and discs, as well as software decoders for Internet content to decode video programs from broadcast networks, storage devices and broadband networks, making it more convenient for users to switch and choose among those media sources. As the Internet is accessible almost everywhere, the ability of CE 3100 to decode various audio and video formats allows for the perfect integration of Internet and TV to bring a more extensive experience to consumers, and its application will certainly boost the development of industry standards and future technologies.

Intel® Consumer Electronics Cooperation Program

In order to comprehensively enhance cooperation with its domestic industry partners, Eric Kim introduced the Intel® Consumer Electronics Cooperation Program to China. Initiated by Intel, the Program covers software, hardware and service suppliers in the industry with the aim to boost the development and marketing of IA SoC system-based Internet-enabled consumer electronic devices and provide a better experience and more options to users.

Members of the Program can better understand and access information on an Intel consumer electronics platform, and will have opportunities to develop and promote products with various features to provide more Internet-enabled consumer electronic devices to consumers. At the same time, the Intel® Consumer Electronics Cooperation Program provides manufacturers of consumer electronic devices with third party solutions based on the Intel consumer electronics platform and coming from a comprehensive industry environment. Intel will also cooperate with members to provide more training opportunities for the industrial community and jointly boost development and innovation in the consumer electronics industry.