Intel has a spanking new mobile platform in the pipeline, waiting for the right time to unleash it upon the ever consuming masses. Known as the Montevina platform, you not only get integrated WiMAX capabilities with this baby, you will also benefit from chip-level support for both Blu-ray and HD DVD media formats. This just about sums up the rather ridiculous “format war”, as more and more manufacturers start to go the dual format way, which in one sense would cripple Sony’s effort to make Blu-ray the all conquering format that it was supposed to be when the PS3 rolled out. Needless to say, this move will definitely not sit down well with either Sony or Toshiba (more for the latter as Blu-ray seems to be having the upper hand at the moment).

First unveiled at the Intel Developer Forum, the Montevina mobile computing platform was specially designed to take over the company’s highly successful Santa Rosa notebook architecture. Montevina will be recipient of the new 45nm Penryn processor architecture where CPUs are concerned, bringing integrated WiMAX high speed wireless broadband capabilities while refusing to take sides in the ongoing high definition format war. Consumers will win in the end with this approach, as they get to watch movies that are exclusive to either format as Toshiba and Sony sit down, seething in a corner.

Since Intel is a chip manufacturer, to offer such support for both disc formats is but a simple burden since the formats share the same H.264, VC9, and MPEG-2 codecs. It is onboard support for either platform that gives system makers the choice to offer either HD DVD or Blu-ray capability, or even both. All in all, the format struggle might just blow over with WiMAX being the bigger news item.

Source: Digital Trends