New codecs provide format flexibility

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Feb 11, 2008

The MM2000 supports any existing and future video codec with a simple firmware upgrade to existing silicon.

Ceva has added RealVideo and VC-1 software to its MM2000 mobile multimedia platform.

The addition of these two video codecs strengthens Ceva's MM2000 software-based architecture in the mobile multimedia market.

Ceva's "all-in-software", programmable approach to mobile multimedia provides significant advantages over specialised video engines that claim to offer multistandard flexibility.

Some video engines require numerous hardware configurations, dedicated instruction sets and accelerators to support the various video codecs specified by the customers' custom silicon requirements.

Therefore, adding new standards requires costly silicon re-spins for each revision.

The MM2000 supports any existing and future video codec with a simple firmware upgrade to existing silicon.

This substantially shortens time to market and eliminates the risks and costs associated with a silicon re-spin.

"Support for RealVideo 8/9/10 and VC-1 video standards is essential in portable consumer electronics for the 'always-connected' generation", said Eran Briman, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Ceva.

"The addition of these codecs serves to strengthen our multimedia offering, particularly in China, where RealVideo support is in great demand".

"Developing a RealVideo demo on our existing Mobile-Media silicon required only four man-months, starting with straight-forward C code compilation and few optimisations".

"This achievement fully illustrates the ease-of-development and true multistandard nature of our Mobile-Media platform, supporting every video codec available, both now and in the future".

The Ceva Mobile-Media family is designed around a single DSP core without requiring any accelerators or dedicated engines for video processing and is supported by a set of development tools.

These two factors simplify the software development process and minimise development time for multimedia products.

In addition, the general-purpose open DSP core at the heart of the Mobile-Media solution enables designers to integrate audio, voice, Bluetooth, GPS and cellular baseband functionality.