Video

3DLabs Aims Massively Parallel Chips at Portable Multimedia

When people talk about massively parallel, multicore chips, they’re usually talking about chips for high-performance line-powered applications, like WiMAX base stations or desktop video processing.  But 3DLabs is headed in a different direction.  The fabless chip company offers a massively parallel media processor, the DMS-02, which the company says is a perfect fit for portable multimedia devices with demanding video and audio processing requirements—such as high-end cellular handsets and Read more...

Hantro 8190 Will Bring YouTube to Cell Phones

A few months ago, video codec vendor On2 announced its acquisition of Hantro, a company that offers licensable video codec accelerators and software.  At the Mobile World Congress in February, On2 unveiled the first offspring from the marriage—the Hantro 8190 licensable silicon IP core. The 8190 is a video decoder core that’s intended for use in chips targeting mobile handsets, and supports the Flash video format (FLV) used by YouTube and Facebook.  So if you get an 8190-equipped cell phone Read more...

Ambric’s Video Accelerator Card Tackles HD H.264

At Macworld last month, Ambric announced that it is using its massively parallel processor architecture as the basis for PC plug-in video accelerator boards. The new video platform is based on Ambric’s AM2045 programmable processor chip and includes off-the-shelf video codec software written by video codec house MainConcept (which was acquired by DivX late last year). OEMs can buy a PCI Express-based reference board from Ambric and add their own codecs or pre-/post-processing software, then Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response—How to Make Money in Video IP

Digital video is almost everywhere. And where it isn’t now, it soon will be.  As a result, the market for digital video intellectual property components—hardware, software, you name it—is wide open, with lots of opportunities for money-making.  And there are roughly five buzillion vendors jockeying for position within a highly fragmented field. You have companies like ARC and Tensilica offering programmable (and sometimes customizable) hardware-plus-software silicon IP solutions for chip Read more...

Behind the scenes: Dolby’s acquisition of Coding Technologies

Dolby, based in San Francisco, CA, has acquired audio compression specialist Coding Technologies. Dolby is well-known for its AC-3 audio compression algorithm (also known as Dolby Digital), used worldwide in cinema sound and more recently accepted for audio for digital television in North America.  Coding Technologies focuses on audio compression for mobile, digital broadcasting and Internet markets worldwide.  Coding Technologies has developed Spectral Band Replication and other technologies Read more...

TI Launches Low-Cost DaVinci Processor with HD Video Capability

This month Texas Instruments launched the DM355, the latest chip in its “DaVinci” family. The DM355 supports high-definition MPEG‑4 video encoding and decoding (but not both simultaneously) and is intended for low-cost imaging and video applications such as digital still cameras, IP video cameras, digital photo frames and video baby monitors. Unlike other DaVinci chips, the DM355 does not include a ‘C64x+ DSP core. Instead, a specialized coprocessor handles MPEG‑4 and JPEG processing. Like Read more...

ARC Introduces Configurable Video Subsystems

Adding to its growing portfolio of licensable silicon IP subsystems, ARC has announced five configurable video processing subsystems. The subsystems range from the smallest-size AV 402V to the highest-performance AV 417V, and support multi-standard video encoding and decoding at resolutions ranging from CIF to D1. (The middle of the family range is filled out by the AV 404V, AV 406V, and AV 407V) are intended for compression-centric applications such as camera phones, portable media players, Read more...

Jeff Bier's Impulse Response—All Video Apps are Not Alike

Pretty much everyone agrees that digital video has become a killer app for embedded processing engines. But “video” can mean different things to different people; the term encompasses a diverse set of applications with very different requirements. A processor you’d use for video playback in a low-cost cell phone, for example, isn’t going to cut it for an HDTV set and vice versa. System developers and their chip suppliers must understand exactly what kinds of video they need to handle, and Read more...

How Video Compression Works

Digital video compression/decompression algorithms (codecs) are at the heart of many modern video products, from DVD players to multimedia jukeboxes to video-capable cell phones. Understanding the operation of video compression algorithms is essential for developers of the systems, processors, and tools that target video applications. In this article, we explain the operation and characteristics of video codecs and the demands codecs make on processors. We also explain how codecs differ from Read more...

Tensilica Offers High-Performance Licensable Video Engine

Tensilica is now offering a high-performance licensable video engine capable of MPEG-4 ASP encoding at D1 resolution. The processor is called the Diamond 388VDO, and it’s one of four new dual-core “VDO” video engines from Tensilica.  The 388VDO is the highest-performance member of the quartet and supports a variety of video codec standards at resolutions up to D1 (i.e., standard definition television). Target applications include chips for mobile handsets and personal media players. In its Read more...