Nuon

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NUON logo.png

Nuon is a technology that adds additional 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.

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[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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 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.

[edit] 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

[edit] Bankruptcy of VM Labs

NUON was created by VM Labs who filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001. The rights to the NUON technology was purchased in 2002 by Genesis Microchip.[citation needed]

[edit] Released movies

Only four DVD releases utilized NUON technology:

[edit] Unreleased movies

[edit] Released games

Eight games were released for the NUON:

[edit] Unreleased games

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

[edit] Collections and samplers

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

35.Cheese LAND 2

[edit] 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].

[edit] 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)

[edit] External links