Nuon (DVD technology)

Nuon is a technology that adds features to a DVD player. In addition to viewing DVDs, one can play 3D video games and use enhanced DVD navigational tools such as zoom and smooth scanning of DVD playback. One could also play CDs while the Nuon graphics processor generates synchronized graphics on the screen. There were plans to provide Internet access capability in the next generation of Nuon-equipped DVD players.

Nuon as DVD format

The Nuon platform was primarily marketed as an expanded DVD format. A large majority of Nuon players that were sold in fact resembled typical consumer DVD players with the only noticeable difference being a Nuon logo. Nuon players offered a number of features that were not available on other DVD players when playing standard DVD-formatted titles. These included very smooth forward and reverse functionality and the ability to smoothly zoom in and out of sections of the video image. In addition, Nuon provided a software platform to DVD authors to provide interactive software like features to their titles.

Nuon as gaming platform

Nuon originally started off as "Project X," and was featured in Electronic Gaming Monthly's 1999 Video Game Buyer's Guide. One of the Nuon's main software developers was Jeff Minter, who created a version of Tempest entitled Tempest 3000 for the system, and the built-in VLM-2 audio visualizer.

Hardware models

A Nuon DVD player made by Samsung

In North America, Nuon was used in the Samsung DVD-N501 and DVD-N2000 models, they also released several models in other parts of the world: DVD-N504 (Europe), DVD N505 (Europe), and DVD-N591 (Korea); a Toshiba SD-2300 DVD player; and two RCA models, the DRC300N and DRC480N. The Nuon was also used in Motorola's Streamaster 5000 "Digital DNA" set-top box. However the format has appeared to have died off. As of November 2004, there are no Nuon-enabled DVD players shipping and no new Nuon software titles.

Peripherals and accessories

Peripherals for Nuon-enhanced DVD players included the following:

• Logitech Gamepad
• Pro-elite controller
• AirPlay wireless controller
• Stealth controller
• Warrior Digital-D pad
• controller extension cable
• port replicator to move the Nuon ports to anywhere desired

Sale to Genesis Microchip

NUON was created by VM Labs whose assets were sold to Genesis Microchip in April 2002.^[1]

Released movies

Only four DVD releases utilized NUON technology:

• Planet of the Apes
• The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension
• Bedazzled
• Dr. Dolittle 2

Unreleased movies

• Galaxy Quest
• Stigmata
• Toxic Avenger

Released games

Eight games were released for the NUON:

• Tempest 3000
• Freefall 3050 A.D.
• Merlin Racing
• Space Invaders X.L.
• Iron Soldier 3 (later recalled due to incompatibility with some players)
• Ballistic (only available with Samsung players)
• The Next Tetris (only available with Toshiba players)
• Crayon Shin Chan 3 (Korean-only release)

Unreleased games

1. aMaze
2. Atari's Greatest Hits
3. Battleship: Surface Thunder
4. Boggle
5. Breakout
6. Bugdom
7. Bust-A-Move 4
8. Dragon's Lair
9. Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp
10. The Game of Life
11. Hoyle Card Games
12. Jeopardy
13. Knockout Kings
14. Madden NFL Football
15. Monopoly
16. Myst
17. Native II
18. Need For Speed II
19. New Scrabble
20. Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure
21. Pong
22. RC de Go!
23. Risk 2
24. Riven
25. Shanghai: Mahjongg Essentials
26. Sorry!
27. Space Ace
28. Speedball 2100
29. Spider-Man
30. Star Trek: Invasion
31. Tiger Woods PGA Golf
32. Wheel of Fortune
33. Yahtzee
34. zCards

Collections and samplers

• Interactive Sampler (three different versions)
• NUON Games + Demos (collection from NUON-Dome)
• NUON-Dome PhillyClassic 5 Demo Disc (giveaway collection)

Homebrew development

During late 2001, VM Labs released a homebrew SDK which allowed people to be able to program apps/games for their NUON system. Only the Samsung DVD-N501/DVDN504/DVDN505 and RCA DRC300N/DRC480N can load homebrew games. The Samsung DVDN-2000 and the Toshiba cannot.^{[citation needed]} The RCA DRC300N and RCA DRC480N cannot play commercial NUON games.^{[citation needed]}.

Homebrew releases

Several homebrew titles have been created for or ported to NUON. They are not commercially available and require the user to burn the material to a NUON-compatible CD-R.

1. Ambient Monsters
2. Atari / C64 Video Game Music Player
3. Atari 800 Emulator
4. Atari 2600 PacMan (hacked version of VLM's Chomp)
5. BOMB
6. Breakout
7. Chomp (sample game included with the second NUON SDK)
8. Decaying Orbit (port of the Yaroze game)
9. Doom (port of the shareware edition)
10. PacMan - Tournament Edition (hacked version of VLM's Chomp)
11. SameGame - Colors
12. SameGame - Shapes
13. Sheshell's Sea Adventure
14. Snake
15. Synth Demo
16. Yaroze Classics (features Katapila, Invs & BreakDown)

References

1. ^ "Genesis Microchip to buy assets of bankrupted DVD chip supplier". Eetimes.com. http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4094510/Genesis-Microchip-to-buy-assets-of-bankrupted-DVD-chip-supplier. Retrieved 2011-09-20. 

External links

• http://www.nuon-dome.com/
• http://www.vmlabs.de/ NUON Alumni Page
• http://www.nuon-eternal.8m.com/