Vorbis Hardware

This is a list of hardware of all categories, from chipsets to ready-to-use products, that support Ogg Vorbis.

Hardware support for Ogg Vorbis is good, although you still need to choose your player carefully. There are currently more than 40 different companies offering a total of more than a hundred products for virtually every application. If you can't find a suitable player come back next week -- new products are added on a weekly basis, as many companies are working to support Vorbis on their hardware.

If you know of any hardware or projects that are not yet mentioned here, please add them to the list. More (outdated) hardware info can be found at vorbis hardware page.

Consumer products

These players support Ogg Vorbis either out of the box or after a firmware upgrade.

• PortablePlayers: mobile players
• StaticPlayers: installed players

For hardware that is able to run third-party software (such as PDAs), please visit VorbisSoftwarePlayers.

Non-consumer products

This is Vorbis in Silicon, meaning chips from which actual consumer products can be built.

• Ogg On A Chip

A hardware/software implementation with a good report showing how to make FPGAs and the like to decode Vorbis streams.

• FineArch

FineArch, Inc. developed a hardware core and control software for decoding Vorbis. This technology can be integrated into portable players or cell phones, and since it runs at only 12MHz, it uses very little battery power. It supports files up to 64Kb/s, but could be scaled to 16MHz and 128Kb/s, at the expense of battery life. For more information, see FineArch’s press release.

• MCS Logic

MCS Logic creates single chip decoders that can play Ogg Vorbis. They supply the Vorbis decoding chips for Havin and Freemax.

• Telechips

Telechips has developed the TCC72x, a single chip decoder that can play Vorbis. The TCC72x series is based on on an ARM940T core, and it is used widely in Korea for players such as Iops or MobiBlu.

• Tamul Multimedia

Tamul Multimedia manufactures decoding chips for Samsung. They claim they have Ogg Vorbis decoding firmware, according to The Digital Times (Korean).

• SigmaTel

SigmaTel hasn't announced anything that we've heard, but we do like this quote:

"I talked to Deborah Clark, product marketing engineer for audio chipmaker Sigmatel out of Austin, Tex. She is the company's expert in audio decoders. She says there is a growing base of support for Ogg Vorbis. "We can't keep paying these high licensing fees for this. Manufacturers would flock to something that's free."

from a 2000 column in Forbes

Some STMP3500-based devices supports Ogg Vorbis, but there are no notes about this on SigmaTel-website.

SigmaTel introduces the STMP3600 with support for Ogg Vorbis, MP3, AAC, WMA and more.[1]