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BDTI Solution Benchmark™

As multimedia systems grow in complexity, system developers increasingly rely on vendors to provide “solutions”—combinations of hardware and software that together implement key multimedia functions such as audio and video compression and decompression. Vendors have responded by offering a growing number of such solutions.

Unfortunately, this has created a new challenge for system developers: vendors’ claims about the performance of their solutions are difficult to interpret and often impossible to compare. Even with standards-based functions, there’s no standardization of performance claims. In reporting the performance of their solutions, each vendor may use different:

Algorithm variants
Frame sizes, frame rates, bit rates
Test streams
Metrics

Worse, there’s no simple way to tell whether reported data is based on a solution that’s ready to be used in your product today—or on back-of-the-napkin guesstimates for a solution that doesn’t actually exist.

To meet vendors’ and system designers’ need for comparable and credible performance data, BDTI has introduced the BDTI Solution Benchmark™. The BDTI Solution Benchmark is appropriate for vendors of chips, hardware IP, and software IP—any company that needs to provide prospects and customers with reliable, comparable, and credible data.

Certification of Vendor Solutions on a BDTI Solution Benchmark

Certification of a solution on a BDTI Solution Benchmark involves two phases: (1) a vendor configures an existing solution (such as a video decoder) in a manner compliant with BDTI’s specification and (2) BDTI certifies the performance of the solution.

This process is applicable to a broad range of standards-based solutions, such as H.264 video decoders and AAC audio decoders. Contact BDTI for a complete list of current and future BDTI Solution Benchmarks.

Phase One: BDTI Solution Benchmark Specification

Under license, BDTI provides a written specification with guidelines for configuring a multimedia solution (such as a decoder or encoder) for certification by BDTI. The specification defines:

Application functionality
The specification defines the functionality and operating parameters of the multimedia solution to be certified. Vendor compliance with the specification requires modest effort—the vendor need only configure its existing solution so that it operates with the specified parameters. For video encoders and decoders, for example, the specification sets specific frame sizes, frame rates, and bit rates.
Test data
For each set of standard parameters, BDTI provides a set of input and output test data. To obtain certification, a solution must process the input test data and generate output data that matches the test output data provided by BDTI within the specified tolerance.
Performance measurements
The specification defines measurement of performance. Performance may be measured in terms of processor loading, total program and data memory use, cost, and energy consumption.

Certification of Vendor Solutions

Once a vendor has configured, tested, and measured its solution in accordance with BDTI’s specification, BDTI carefully verifies the results by reviewing the configuration, validating functionality, and repeating the measurements taken by the vendor. As the basic certification service, BDTI repeats vendor measurements of processor loading, total program and data memory use, and cost. As an additional service, BDTI also measures energy consumption.

If appropriate, BDTI certifies the performance of the solution. In order to facilitate certification, BDTI provides vendors with a template for reporting information about their solutions.

Additional Services

Several additional services are available from BDTI in conjunction with certification of a solution on a BDTI Solution Benchmark, including measurement and certification of energy consumption.

A vendor may also engage BDTI to perform a detailed analysis of its solution. A BDTI analysis can highlight aspects of a solution that are not readily apparent from performance results alone. BDTI’s experienced engineers examine the performance of a solution in relation to the architecture of the solution. Such an analysis can reveal the strengths and weaknesses of a solution, providing valuable information for solution vendors’ engineering and marketing organizations.

Currently Available BDTI Solution Benchmarks: H.264 Decoders

BDTI currently offers the BDTI Solution Benchmark for certification of H.264 decoding solutions. Future BDTI Solution Benchmarks will support other standards and multimedia functions.

BDTI Certified™ results on the BDTI Solution Benchmark for H.264 Decoders have been published for the following solutions:

ARC International AV 401V Video Subsystem (see results)
Texas Instruments TMS320DM6446 DaVinci Family System-on-Chip (see results)

Read more about the BDTI Solution Benchmark for H.264 Decoders.

Licensing and Certification

For information on fees for licensing and certification, to have your solution certified by BDTI, or to discuss how you can use a BDTI Solution Benchmark to meet your needs, contact BDTI.

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