ATI's upcoming Theatre 650 Pro digital TV chip has achieved PCI Express certification, Reg Hardware can reveal, paving the way for the part's formal introduction. The graphics specialist's RS600 chipset has also passed the PCI-E test.

At this stage it's unclear what the 650 Pro adds to the existing 550 Pro part, which shipped in March 2005 and is now a key component of ATI's Avivo video and image processing pipeline. Based on the PowerColor board Tul showed at CeBIT last month, the 650 Pro is expected to incorporate an accelerated motion-adaptive 3D comb filter - used to separate colour and brightness information from composite video signals - along with multi-stage gain control, fine colour control, edge enhancement filtering and cadence detection.

The 650 Pro is also expected to support not only HDMI but also the HDCP copy-protection scheme.

The RS600 is expected to appear in June alongside the RS690, possibly one for Intel CPUs, the other for AMD processors. Again, both are believed to incorporate HDCP support and the HDMI output seen at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. They'll feature HD Audio too, reports on the web have claimed, and - as RSxxx parts - incorporate their own North Bridge-hosted GPU. ®