Digital Video Interactive
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Digital Video Interactive (DVI) was the first multimedia desktop video standard for IBM-compatible personal computers, developed around 1984 by Sarnoff Research Labs (a division of RCA at the time, later a division of General Electric after their purchase of RCA in 1986, and then sold by GE to Intel in 1988).
It allowed full-screen, full motion video, as well as stereo audio, still images, and graphics to be presented on a Windows/DOS-based desktop computer. DVI content was usually distributed on CD-ROM discs, which in turn was decoded and displayed via specialized hardware installed in the computer. Audio and video files for DVI were the first to use data compression, with audio content using ADPCM. DVI was the first technology of its kind for the desktop PC, and ushered in the multimedia revolution for PCs.
The first implementation of DVI developed in the mid-80s relied on three 16-bit ISA cards installed inside the computer, one for audio processing, another for video, and the last as an interface to a CD-ROM drive. The DVI video card used a custom chipset for decompression & display called the VDP (video display processor).
Later DVI implementations only used one card, such as Intel's ActionMedia series (omitting the CD-ROM interface). The ActionMedia (and the later ActionMedia II) were available in both ISA and MCA-bus cards, the latter for use in MCA-bus PCs like IBM's PS/2 series.
Intel now owns the DVI standard as of today.
