Ligos Technology is now offering a free downloadable beta version of its LSX-MPEG player.

Available for a 60-day evaluation period, the MPEG-2 software decoder requires no additional hardware to run.

With a 233MHz Pentium II processor, the player can decode MPEG-2 bitstreams of up to 10 Mbps at half D-1 resolution.

Full screen playback of up to full D-1 resolution files, NTSC (720-by-480, 30fps) or PAL (720-by-576, 25 fps) requires a 350MHz Pentium II system with a DirectX-compatible video card supporting YUV overlay mode.

The player is DirectShow- and ActiveMovie-compatible, allowing playback directly through Microsoft's Media Player.

In addition to a 233MHz Pentium II, the LSX-MPEG Player requires a minimum 32MB of RAM, a VGA video card with at least 4MB of VRAM, and Windows 95, 98 or NT.

Customers can download the software from http://www.ligos.com/downloads/ .

A full consumer version will be available in about two months for purchase at $29.95.