Digital Home Thoughts: VIA Announces the VN1000 Digital Media Chipset

"The VIA VN1000 digital media north bridge chipset is designed for next generation desktop, small form factor and all-in-one PCs, offering a world-class HD multimedia entertainment platform...Combined with VIA Nano and VIA Nano 3000 Series processors, the VIA VN1000 offers a power-efficient entertainment-focused platform that makes light work of HD video and the latest Blu-ray playback. The ChromotionHD 2.0 video processor guarantees smooth playback of the latest Blu-ray titles with superb hardware acceleration of the most demanding HD codecs at HDTV resolutions of 1080p and above. The VIA VN1000 also features the latest display technologies, including Display Port and HDMI support as well as options for dual and single channel LVDS, DVI and VGA outputs."

In my head, VIA has always been synonymous with Cyrix processors - anyone remember that processor from the '90s? Turns out that VIA bought Cyrix, so I wasn't too far off the mark. I have to admit though that I haven't had a very good first impression of VIA CPUs - my first experience with one was the HP 2133 Mini Note in which the VIA 1.2 Ghz CPU struggled to play even DVD-resolution videos. That was then and this is now: VIA has created their own north bridge chipset, and it brings 1080p playback to the table. This is the type of technology that only matters when it's been implemented by an OEM - so we'll see where these chips end up...