AMD Live! Home Entertainment Platform Expanded With Services

Advanced Micro Devices continues to step up its battle with Intel to secure a bigger share of the digital home entertainment market with the introduction on Wednesday of the AMD Live! Entertainment Suite, a collection of services and applications designed to enhance the home PC experience.

PC makers such as Acer, Alienware, Fujitsu Siemens, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, Sahara, and Tsinghua Tongang will offer the AMD Live!-branded systems, which use AMD's Athlon 62 X2 dual processor, starting in June.

AMD is fighting for a larger piece of the digital home entertainment market as rival Intel is engaged in a similar branding effort for the home market under its Viiv platform brand.

"With AMD Live! PC, AMD begins delivering on its vision for merging broadcast TV content with interactive, personalized broadband applications and services, all without disrupting the devices already accepted and used by consumer in their homes today," Bob Brewer, VP of AMD's desktop business, said in a statement.

Among the first services to be offered on AMD Live! include On Demand, a service powered by Orb Networks that streams live or prerecorded television programs, photos, music, and movies to Web-connected devices.

Also being offered is Compress, a tool that optimizes recorded television content and lets users save large volumes of TV shows on their PCs. Another service, Network Magic, lets users set up, manage, and secure their home network. LogMeIn is a service providing users with the ability to remotely control an AMD Live! PC.