CMS has been long-time devoting to PC-based home entertainment system development.  Established since 1993, CMS has been working on different types of  PC-based home entertainment platforms. 

In early stage of 100Mhz Pentium MMX, CMS developed a CRT based all-in-one system that can play MPEG1 streaming video and audio sound tracks.  In 1995, a more advanced system based on the 200Mhz Pentium MMX can play back MPEG2 video and audio.    These early stage of home entertainment systems used 100% of the CPU time and could not have multitasking functions, a dedicated device to perform either computing task or playing back MPEG2 video.

After 1997, as the debut of Intel Pentium II/III CPUs, the CMS home entertainment system could have limited multitasking functions.  While playing DVD movie, one could be working on word processing simultaneously.  This system had a Windows 95 OS.  However, the play back of DVD movie still takes 80% or more of the CPU time. 

A more practical home entertainment system with multitasking features could not be developed until Intel introduced P4 (later P4 Hyper-Threading) processors in recent years.  The CMS home entertainment system based on a 3.2G P4 HT processor and Windows XP can play back multiple MPEG2 streaming videos on different displays (a build-in LCD monitor and a TV set).

Also, such system can have HDTV (ATSC) features with an optional ATI HDTV Wonder card installed.  However, the CPU time usage is still more than 50% and a HDTV program can only be viewed at minimum mode while a DVD or MPEG2 streaming video is in play.  In addition, the HDTV program stalls when a user opens another window to perform word processing or to play 3D games.  A more responsive home entertainment system is needed for practical consumer daily usage.

Here comes the rescue from the Intel Dual-Core CPUs and the CMS DX2Ô/EX2Ô designs.  The CMS DX2Ô/EX2Ô home entertainment series based on an Intel Dual-Core CPU (D800/D900 series) and the CMS DX2Ô/EX2Ô designs (build-in Dual-Displays) can play DVD movie on one screen, display an HDTV program (1920x1080i format) with up to 5 hours of PVR (personal video recording) on another screen, while in the background mode encode an audio CD to WMD files.  Another example is that a father is watching HDTV program on a 37” LCD screen while the son is playing 3D games on a 21” build-in monitor.  The CPU time usage combined is less than 80%.  A true and practical multitasking home entertainment system!

The future home entertainment system will have multi-core and multi-displays.  A CMS MX2Ô (Multi-Core, Multi-Display) based home entertainment system is under development, which is based on a multi-core CPU and multi-display platform which is called HDMMCÔ (High-Definition Multi-Media Center) or HDHECÔ (High-Definition Home Entertainment Center).  Only one such system can be installed to act as the gateway to the Internet and to handle all the other functions such streaming videos, VoIP, interactive gaming, HDTV streaming, DVD on demand via Internet, video conferencing, just to name a few.