ATI Radeon 256 Preview

ATI has always been known for their superior video support, and in continuing that tradition, the Radeon 256 includes an on-die TMDS transmitter that allows for a DVI output to drive flat panels at resolutions up to 1600 x 1200.  ATI believes that this year will be the year we start seeing the transition made to DVI flat panels, though we’ve heard that time and time again.  Maybe this time we’ll actually see it happen.

The Radeon 256 also supports complete HDTV decoding support, once again, on-die with full support for all ATSC resolutions. 

The Radeon 256 also has a feature called adaptive de-interlacing, which attacks one of the major problems with video quality on a PC – the process of de-interlacing the video.  There are two main algorithms used to de-interlace video, Bob de-interlacing and Add Field de-interlacing.  Bob de-interlacing works best on pictures while Add Field is best for stationary text.  Adaptive de-interlacing basically chooses the best of the two algorithms on a per pixel basis to achieve a sharper image, which is demonstrated by the following pictures:

And as you would expect, the Radeon 256 is fully compatible with the Rage Theater chip, meaning that there is a strong possibility for something like an All in Wonder Radeon 256 product down the line.