LONDON — NOVEMBER 2ND, 2004 — NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), a worldwide leader in graphics and digital media processors, today announced that its NVIDIA Quadro® FX technology will be used by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), to provide real-time on-screen graphics for the much anticipated US election programme airing on November 2nd.

So as to monitor the progress of the election as the results come in through the night, the BBC, in conjunction with RT software, have developed a real-time virtual set, which can be dynamically updated with information throughout the programme. Hosted by Peter Snow, the programme will track all the results as they become available and display them in real-time and in a visually compelling format, including a map of North America which will change colour according to which regions have been won and by whom.

“Working in the broadcast arena requires a keen appreciation of budgets, deadlines and the clear delivery of information. This is especially true of live broadcast graphics, where idents, captions, digital stills and animated elements are essential, both to help establish a unique visual identity for a particular programme and to complement live feeds with text and images that keep viewers informed at all times. The NVIDIA Quadro FX 3000 fulfils the BBC’s needs,” said Jerry Clark, 3D resources manager at the BBC.

“When working with virtual sets, the real-time rendering is the biggest hurdle,” said Mike Fredriksen, sales and marketing director of RT Software. “This is especially true on this programme as the combination of real time graphics with complex results is a major rendering challenge, especially when you consider that field rate transmission means each frame has just one fiftieth of a second to be rendered. Adding the required anti-aliasing and flicker filters and the situation is compounded. The NVIDIA Quadro FX hardware delivers the performance and shader technology we need in a stable, broadcast quality package."

The NVIDIA Quadro FX family is the industry’s leading high-end workstation graphics solution for CAD, DCC and scientific applications. Featuring outstanding performance and precision the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3000 delivers 256MB frame buffer memory, up to 27.2GB/s memory bandwidth, 256-bit memory interface as well as support for ultra high-resolution panels.

NVIDIA’s activity in the broadcast arena is growing, and the BBC is just one of a number of broadcast houses that are using NVIDIA Quadro FX graphics to stably run real-time graphics on live to air programming. NVIDIA will be releasing more information about these projects in future announcements.

About NVIDIA
NVIDIA Corporation is a worldwide leader in graphics and digital media processors. The Company's products enhance the end-user experience on consumer and professional computing devices. NVIDIA GPUs (graphics processing units), MCPs (media and communications processors), and WMPs (wireless media processors) have broad market reach and are incorporated into a variety of platforms, including consumer and enterprise PCs, notebooks, workstations, PDAs, mobile phones and video game consoles. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, California and employs more than 2,000 people worldwide. For more information, visit the Company’s Web site at http://www.nvidia.co.uk.