Dreamcast set-top-box/DVR

[nnorton44]

Dug up this old article, discusses how SEGA planned to make a set-top-box compatible with Dreamcast games and had DVR functions.

http://web.archive.org/web/200104192256 ... hp?id=5038

PICS:






SEGA And Pace Reveal New Digital Home Gateways Platform

Unlike the typical concept of placing a disc or cart in order to play a game, this new PVR features a 40GB hard drive that will allow consumers not only to download 10-20 hours worth move video, but additionally allow you to hold anywhere from 50-60 Dreamcast games.

http://dreamcast.ign.com/articles/091/091105p1.html

[nnorton44]

Wish they shipped this baby too:

[dark]

Towards the end, around 2001, Sega was talking about licensing the dreamcast technology for 3rd party projects, such as this set top box. Around 2004, the phrase "dreamcast on a chip" was being mentioned in articles as well.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1667685,00.asp

Too bad nothing came from any of this. I would greatly enjoy a genuine PSP-size portable dreamcast.

[BrianC]

@Dark: Tell me more! The full article appears to be gone but I've never heard of this. Was the plan really to create a handheld for gaming or was it designed for other portable applications (such as the iphone using powerVR)?

[dark]

I think it was more that a Japanese electronics manufacturing firm had obtained owership of the SH4 architecture from hitachi (DC used SH4), and as a demonstration of their capabilities, and to develop components useful in small portable electronics, they had created a "dreamcast on a chip" - a small chip which incorporated much of the DC hardware and architecture (but likely not the custom SEGA firmware such as the bios, or the gdrom drive, maybe not the PowerVR graphics chip either, I'm not sure). This proof of concept was to show off their miniaturization capabilities and maybe promote use of the SH4 in stuff like cell phones, rather than to actually roll out and produce a portable dreamcast.

These electronics manufacturing firms either create or supply components to be used in consumer electronics (IE: Yamaha creating a GDrom drive which gets dropped into a hitachi motherboard with a PowerVR graphics card), rather than actually designing and marketing consumer electronics which contain the multiple parts, which is what someone like Sega or Nintendo would do.

There appear to be many discussions and reports similar to the article which is no longer available. Here are a bunch:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22dream ... =firefox-a

[dark]

Oh hey, actually this dreamcast on a chip, as created by Renesas (the succeeding Japanese electronics firm) was actually used! By Sega(sammy).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Aurora

Sega Aurora is a highly integrated hardware platform that Sega Sammy developed to power amusement devices like their pachinko/pachislot machine displays and arcade games and to also be sublicensed to outside manufacturers who are looking to build multimedia portable and embedded systems. It was introduced in 2004 and is primarily based on an enhanced Dreamcast hardware. The name "Aurora" derives from a top secret code name that Sega of Japan used during the development of Sega Saturn in the mid 1990s.

Aurora is made of a Renesas System-on-Chip named SH3707 which incorporates the technologies of partner companies that worked on the Dreamcast and related systems. Its CPU core is Renesas SH-4 based technology with FPU clocked at 300 MHz. Its GPU core is a PowerVR MBX accelerator with VGP co-processor running at 150 MHz. On-chip audio and video hardware supply the system with the capability for ADPCM and MPEG1/2/4 respectively.

So the dreamcast lived on... as a pachinko machine XD

[cloofoofoo]

Oh hey, actually this dreamcast on a chip, as created by Renesas (the succeeding Japanese electronics firm) was actually used! By Sega(sammy).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Aurora

Sega Aurora is a highly integrated hardware platform that Sega Sammy developed to power amusement devices like their pachinko/pachislot machine displays and arcade games and to also be sublicensed to outside manufacturers who are looking to build multimedia portable and embedded systems. It was introduced in 2004 and is primarily based on an enhanced Dreamcast hardware. The name "Aurora" derives from a top secret code name that Sega of Japan used during the development of Sega Saturn in the mid 1990s.

Aurora is made of a Renesas System-on-Chip named SH3707 which incorporates the technologies of partner companies that worked on the Dreamcast and related systems. Its CPU core is Renesas SH-4 based technology with FPU clocked at 300 MHz. Its GPU core is a PowerVR MBX accelerator with VGP co-processor running at 150 MHz. On-chip audio and video hardware supply the system with the capability for ADPCM and MPEG1/2/4 respectively.

So the dreamcast lived on... as a pachinko machine XD

Thats still pretty powerful and from what I understand it runs on linux so it MIGHT have been easier to program for.I wish sega would have released a low cost version with integrated games like they did for the genesis and and some namco games.

Hardware : System-on-a-chip 90nm solution with integrated CPU, Graphics and Sound Hardware.
CPU : Hitachi SH-4 32-bit RISC CPU @ 300MHz
GPU : Imagination Technologies Power VR MBX+VGP @ 150MHz
SPU : ADPCM Sound
Triangle Rendering : 10M Polygons/sec
Fill Rate : 150M Pixel/sec
Max Resolution : 1280x1024
Other Features : Ethernet and USBSoftware Setup;
GT Library : Specially designed 3D graphics library provides simple and easy development environment for 3D graphics application not requiring deep hardware knowledge.
A/V Streaming Middleware : Movie/Stream Audio middleware provides High Quality and High Performance Video and Audio rendering.
Operating System : Embedded LINUX 2.6 OS providing highly efficient Real-time multi-task operation.
Serveral modificiations were made including SH4 Specific Minor tuning on 2.6 to improve the interrupt response and a synchronization API was added.