ViXS Systems has launched a new chipset designed to process video over analog and digital connections.

The XCode II, which provides QoS for multiple video streams, is aimed at DVD-Rs with on-board hard drives as well as standalone devices such as PCs, digital video recorders and LCD displays. The chip's wireless capabilities can add portability to LCD sets, noted ViXS Director of Corporate Marketing Ciricia Proulx. The chip, which supplies its own encoder, can also pipe video over wired networks.

"We don't impact the transport, so we're agnostic to what type of network that is," Proulx said. The XCode II is also relatively agnostic when it comes to video compression. The chip can support MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, and is capable of transcoding and mixing high-definition and standard-definition video.

The first iteration of the XCode II does not support Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Media 9, "but that doesn't mean other versions won't," Proulx said.

Media centers and digital set-tops are other markets the company's technology could target.

ViXS expect XCodeII-equipped products to hit the shelves by the first or second quarter of 2004. The company declined to provide price points for the new chipset.