So Viiv Means What Exactly?

from the yeah,-we'll-get-back-to-you-on-that dept

Intel has a history of doing very straightforward marketing of its chips — which is what helped turned a boring microchip into a brand consumers knew about and even asked for. “Intel Inside” was a huge marketing coup for the company. Even with things like Centrino (where Intel tried to co-opt the WiFi brand into its own), many people understood that there was a wireless component to the chip. However, it seems that many people have no real clue what the point of the new Viiv label means — and Intel isn’t helping matters with its non-explanation. It’s maybe got something to do with home entertainment. Or possibly copy protection. Or maybe both. But Microsoft is working on its own efforts in that space, as is Intel competitor AMD. It seems that Intel is just kind of hoping that if it puts enough hype behind the brand, people will buy into it anyway — but it might help if people knew what “it” actually did for them.


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Comments on “So Viiv Means What Exactly?”

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12 Comments
Sohrab says:

No Subject Given

I couldnt agree with you more man. Ive been working retail for close to 4 years now and with the new chipsets hitting out and they no longer being in 3.4GHZ P4 and now being 530 and 720 chipsets a a Pentium D or ViiV unit inside and having no real clue with all these new names suddenly is going to turn off alot of customers cause they hate confusion and thats what the hell i am. confused

ConceptJunkie (profile) says:

Re: No Subject Given

Yeah, and given the fact that almost no one needs, or can even benefit from, the newer processors, Intel is really hurting themselves.

There is nothing that 90% of computer users do that couldn’t be done on 10-year old computers. Faster hardware only gives people like Microsoft permission to write bigger and more bloated code.

Anonymous Coward #42 says:

No Subject Given

http://www.intel.com/products/viiv/description.htm#features

Key componentsProcessor
Dual-core 64-bit processing power means smooth performance and complete control of your digital media.

Chipset
Advanced technology works in harmony with Intel drivers for vivid graphics, smooth video playback and support for up to 7.1 channel surround sound.

So, it looks like it is just a 64-bit chip that will live on an integrated mother. No big deal

Anonymous Coward #42 says:

Re: Re: No Subject Given

It means what it means. What does any technological crap mean to people outside the know? NOTHING! I don’t dick about cars. What the hell is a carberatour (see, I can’t even spell it) do? If I don’t know what the hell it does, why would I care what the specs mean?? Same concept.

Will you need it in your new Dell?
Chances are, you won’t have that option, but unless you are a tech guy, you don’t care. Why don’t you care? For the same reason that I don’t give a rat’s about my toaster. Does it work? Will it cook bagels? That’s all I care about. To a professional cook however, certain other criteria arise and become important. To the mass consumer, a computer has become an appliance, nothing more. Will it play my games, music, pron, etc…

English language conversation:

“Sales dude, I need a new computer. What is this Viv sticker?”

“Well consumer dude, first, what do you need a new computer for?”

“Okay sales dude, I need to be able to play Doom 5”

and so on and so forth. The consumer doesn’t care about thread count and parity, and all that other mumbo jumbo. Will it play Doom 5? Can I email grandma? We need Windows Vista because my kid says so….

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: free-of-charge to Intel

So by the last poster’s example, the reason why Intel isn’t really pushing their VIIV chip to the customers as much as they were pushing “Intel inside”, has very much to do with the fact that the customer really doesn’t need to know about this chip since it’s not targeted towards the average mom/dad family minded persons. Why should Intel spend their money advertising a product that only a technician will ever be able to see the full potential of why it’s necessary.

So in this case, I applaud Intel at their new VIIV marketing strategy, as to save money by not wasting it – advertising a product that “the AVERAGE consumer may not care about”. Heck, Im a technician, and before I get into new technology, I research it – why should Intel foolishly toss money away in advertisements, on a product that the only people who are going to know what it’s used for, those people will spend their own time and resources to learn about the product — free-of-charge to Intel.

Anonymous Coward #42 says:

Re: Re: Re:2 free-of-charge to Intel

Look at my initial post:

http://www.intel.com/products/viiv/description.htm#features

Key componentsProcessor
Dual-core 64-bit processing power means smooth performance and complete control of your digital media.

Chipset
Advanced technology works in harmony with Intel drivers for vivid graphics, smooth video playback and support for up to 7.1 channel surround sound.

So, it looks like it is just a 64-bit chip that will live on an integrated mother. No big deal

***********************************************

Intel IS describing what it does. That was my original intent in the post. The last post was in response to someone’s question “What does that mean, etc in plain english…?”

My response was trying to address that logic. Sorry if it was troll fodder. Didn’t intend it.

Sohrab says:

No Subject Given

well here is the thing. My Intel chipset right now is the P4 3.4GHZ that is a 64 bit chipset. Of course, that like the ViiV wont do me or anybody else jack shit cause XP is still a 32bit system unless I get XP64 but even then, most apps are still not 64bit so wont do me jack.

I have the so called 7.1HD surround also. woopdy freaking do. Any computer can get surround sound and my favorite is DVR like options. get a freakin graphics card with the input and your there.

Bill says:

The meaning of Viiv

A Viiv computer is designed to replace the DVD player in your living room. Also your VCR and CD player and TiVo. Just get rid of all that stuff and attach 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound speakers to your computer. Now you can surf the web from your sofa or recliner (with wireless keyboard & mouse) on your widescreen LCD HDTV monitor. Record TV shows on your hard drive. Watch movies in surround sound.

Well that’s my understanding of it.

But you need to install a 32 bit operating system on your 64-bit capable machine. Viiv as of now only is supported on Windows XP media center edition and Vista Home Premium and Ultimate, 32-bit versions only.

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