According to Equator, the low-cost, single-chip AVC/H.264 implementation will enable a wide range of high-volume consumer applications ranging from IP set-top boxes, IP videophone, digital video recorders, and other digital media adapter products.
ASTRI says that its AVC/H.264 codec is optimized to achieve optimal video quality "through narrow and fluctuating channels," and that the codec represents a significant advancement in video compression technology, doubling the efficiency of digital transmission and capacity of storage without compromising visual quality. The ASTRI implementation of the real-time D1 resolution baseline level 3 AVC/H.264 video encoder and decoder can each run on a single BSP-15 chip, and produce DVD quality video at less than 1Mbps, the company claims.
According to Equator, the
BSP-15 SoC implements a proprietary VLIW/SIMD instruction set architecture optimized for video-intense applications. Equator says the chip functions as a multi-format media-processing engine, and supports a list of codecs that includes Windows Media 9 Series (in standard definition and 720p high definition), H.264, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, RealVideo, DivX, H.263, H.263+, and VP6. The company provides Windows CE 4.2 driver support for integrating the BSP-15 into multimedia appliances.
Last year, Equator
released Windows CE 4.2 drivers that support the use of the BSP-15 as a co-processor to accelerate Windows Media 9 Series playback in consumer appliances such as set-top boxes and home multimedia gateways.
Related stories:
