Diamond Multimedia Tests Networking Waters at CES

Diamond Multimedia is well known for its AMD graphics cards and USB capture devices. To date, the AMD graphics cards continue to be their cash cow, flying off the store shelves at retailers such as Fry's. DisplayLink products (eg.) also form a good chunk of their product catalog.

We dropped by their CES suite to see the products on display. The most interesting DisplayLink product (pictured above) was the Ultra Dock dual video USB 3.0 / USB 2.0 docking station. With the advent of ultrabooks (which forsake expansion ports in order to achieve a thin profile), docking stations like the Ultra Dock can fulfil important functionality when the unit is being used on a desk. All ultrabooks come with a healthy number of USB 3.0 ports, and one of these can be used as a host for the Ultra Dock. The dock is also externally powered, and provides four USB 2.0 ports, a GbE port, HDMI and DVI ports on the rear and two USB 3.0 ports as well as a headphone jack on the front.

Diamond Multimedia is also testing the waters of the networking market by coming up with some 802.11n dual-band routers and 500 Mbps HomePlug AV PLC (powerline communication) networking kits. They also had a 'pet camera' on display which connects to the router using HomePlug technology built into the camera. The kit also comes with an adapter to connect to the power lines at the router end. The camera and  This is a very interesting IP camera feature that seems to be an ideal PLC application.

A network TV tuner was also on display. Similar to the HD Home Run class of devices,  it also comes with a HDMI port. The product appears to be still in development and is expected to release in the second half of the year.