NVIDIA announced that Microsoft’s new Zune HD portable media player is powered by the NVIDIA Tegra processor.

The Zune HD player, which Microsoft recently announced is available for preorder, is the first portable media player to combine HD-compatible video, HD Radio receiver, full-screen Internet browsing, an organic light emitting diode touch screen, and Wi-Fi. These features will connect consumers to a whole new world of entertainment, while delivering excellent battery life. Working closely with Microsoft and optimizing the Tegra processor, NVIDIA has played an important role in helping to bring the next-generation Zune HD portable digital media player to market.

Key to Tegra’s rich multimedia features are eight independent processors, each designed for a specific class of tasks - among them are an HD video processor, an audio processor, a graphics processor, and two ARM cores. The processors can work together or independently to minimize power consumption. The Microsoft Zune HD uses the following NVIDIA Tegra technology: an HD video processor dedicated to HD video, providing ultra-smooth, vivid movie playback with low power consumption; an ultra-low power graphics processor for a compelling and intuitive user interface; and NVIDIA nPower technology, which optimizes system power use and enables extended HD video and MP3 playback time.

Tegra processor has been engineered over the past five years to bring high performance and low power capabilities to the next generation of mobile computing devices such as portable media players, smartphones, smartbooks, netbooks and tablets. There are 50 active Tegra processor-based design projects currently in the works today.