Despite an interesting name, AVIVO does not stand for anything specific. It is a collection of different video technologies that share a common name, like Centrino or ViiV for example. First and foremost, ATI's AVIVO includes a hardware accelerator for MPEG-2/DVD Microsoft Windows Media HD video standards (WMV HD) and H.264 standards.

As mentioned earlier, VIVO is built into all X1000 series videocards so even entry level PC's can be used as Home Theatre PCs (HTPC) or Personal Video Recorders (PVR) with the appropriate 3rd-part software applications. AVIVO can automatically adjust gamma and colour correction, and that should enhance picture quality too.

High Fidelity Colour allows for 10-bits per colour channel, which translated basically means a more vibrant picture. There is also a high quality 12-bit analog-to-digital converter to reduce picture noise.

To test AVIVO's HD accelerating capabilities, we played a HD video through Windows Media Player 10 (the movie can be downloaded from Microsoft's WMV HD Content Showcase). The Discoverers (IMAX) video is available in both 720P and 1080P formats, and CPU utilization was monitored during playback through Task Manager to give a general indication of system load.

ATi's AVIVO seems to be slightly more efficient than nVIDIA's PureVideo technology, and CPU utilization here hovers between 15-25% when watching the 720P version of "The Discoverers" video.

Playing the 1080P version obviously uses up more system resources since more data has to be computed. CPU utilization still stays quite low, averagin between 20-36%.