4 years ago Intel described themselves as manufacturers of processors that made computers go faster, today they call themselves a platform Company and not the railway sort, more the entertaining sort. It all started when Intel delivered the Centrino Platform that one now finds in a notebook. It included not only the processor on the chipset but wireless and a lot of other goodies that in essence made plug in components redundant. It led to better notebook design and improved performance including cooler, quieter notebooks. The Viiv goodies are clustered around the processor in a similar way and include not only wireless but hi-fi capabilities that allow for better sound. There is also video technology for improved vision as well as connectivity technology that allows for improved communication across networks and to storage devices.
However the revolution in PC system design that was supposed to spark a boom in demand for media centres has not happened because of god awful media centre design and lousy all dancing all crashing software from Microsoft. My perfect Media Centre is an embedded Viiv chipset and software that purely delivers a great entertainment experience as well as such features as wireless connectivity, storage management etc. Not software that also allows one to also do normal business or word processing or accounting activities. Who the hell wants to do this sort of stuff sitting in front of a TV screen.
The Viiv platform includes admirable innovations, but PCs need to be better designed to take advantage of them. The standards list Intel developed for Viiv PCs offers a strong base for multimedia PCs: every Viiv PC must include Windows XP Media Centre Edition 2005 Update Rollup 2; an Intel Core Duo, Pentium D or Pentium Extreme Edition processor; the Intel 945G, 955X or 975X Express chipset; RAID storage and a Serial ATA hard drive.
