Remember Sigma Designs' pioneering RealMagic MPEG hardware decoding and playback card, which let PCs play high-quality video before there were DVDs? Now the company is looking ahead to the new MPEG-4 standard with X-Card, a $100 add-in that turns a Windows 98SE/Me/XP desktop into a home theater system for users creating their own PC entertainment libraries.

MPEG-4 is a high-quality, super-compressed format (it can shrink a DVD video tenfold, or a VHS movie a hundredfold) that providers like DivX Networks and Internet Streaming Media Alliance companies are using to distribute download-friendly digital video. Sigma's X-Card is a PCI board that delivers full hardware decoding of MPEG-4 (as well as DVD and MPEG-1 and -2) files and Dolby Digital audio output to a surround-sound receiver.

Supporting standard, wide-screen, high-definition, and progressive display formats, the X-Card comes with a TV-style remote control that mimics the controls of a DVD player. It'll ship in March 2002.

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