SoC supports both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray codes

Single IC enables dual-channel native 1080/60p decoding, encoding and transcoding for next generation media players/recorders supporting both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray optical disc formats.

Horizon Semiconductors has developed the industry's first universal SoC to enable dual-channel native 1080/60p decoding, encoding and transcoding for next generation media players/recorders supporting the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray optical disc formats (as well as legacy red laser DVD format).

The Hz7120 HD-DVD/Blu-Ray SoC supports wide range of features and capabilities including conformance to leading video compression standards such as native high-definition 1080/60i and 1080/60p profiles of AVC/H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2 and DV/HDV, leading audio compression standards such as DTS-HD, Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD, as well as HD-DVD and Blu-Ray HDi and BD-J (BD-Java) interactive technologies.

TheHz7120 is provided with a comprehensive software stack compliant with both Blu-ray and HD DVD specifications, and a reference hardware platform designed to significantly accelerate OEM/ODM development cycle.

"Consumers are not really sure which player format will prevail, and will naturally wait for lower cost native 1080p60 universal HD-DVD/Blu-Ray playback and recording platform", says Amir Morad, President and CEO of Horizon Semiconductors.

"Consumers also want the flexibility of watching content wherever they like, and will therefore naturally prefer devices incorporating higher quality, low bitrate transcoding and integrated iVDR support, as offered in Horizon'sHz7120 SoC".

TheHz7120 is designed with the highest level of integration, embedding a variety of cutting edge technologies.

Its powerful multistream decoder and encoder engines support real-time Dual-channel HD decoding simultaneously with HD encoding/transcoding, using leading compression standards including: H.264 (AVC) Main and High Profile up to Level 4.2, VC-1 (SMPTE 421M) Advanced Profile at Level 3, DV, HDV, MPEG-2 MP@HL and MPEG-4 at resolutions up to 1080/60p (1920x1080, 60 frame/s) and bitrates up to 50Mbit/s per channel, compliant with the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray optical disc formats.

The advanced display processor enables multiple plane true colour blending and HD picture-in-picture (PiP), flexible resising, motion adaptive high-definition de-interlacing, and advanced motion-compensated picture enhancement.

It integrates a high-definition (1920x1080), powerful 2D and 3D graphics accelerator with dedicated high definition subpicture decoder and font rendering engines, supporting all HD-DVD and Blu-Ray graphics modes as well as popular graphics standards such as X Windows System and OpenGL.

Also included are a still image decoder and Thomson Multimedia's Film Grain Technology (FGT) accelerators, compliant with HD-DVD specifications.

A multichannel multiformat audio encoder, decoder and special audio effects processor, support all HD-DVD and Blu-Ray standards and operational modes such as: Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, DD+ to DD conversion, Dolby TrueHD, DTS/DTS-HD, MPEG1 Layer I and II, MP3, HE-AAC v2, WMA pro, simultaneous primary and secondary stream decoding/encoding in up to 7.1 channels per stream, mixing, down mixing and Karaoke.

Its high-performance application CPU with MMU is dedicated exclusively for running standard operating systems such as Linux or Microsoft Windows CE as well as enabling the customer's specific applications, in addition to a dedicated coprocessor designed to materially offload the main application CPU.

Also included are: a multistream high-bandwidth transport processor, designed to process program and transport streams from DVD, HDD or IP network; a wide variety of advanced connectivity and peripherals including 10/100/1G Ethernet, USB 2.0, IDE/ATAPI, SMPTE-292, Flash, I2C, SPI/SSI, UART and others; DVI/HDMI output with integrated HDCP security; IEEE1394 (FireWire) with integrated DTCP security supporting direct camcorder and digital movie camera content streaming; an iVDR interface with integrated SAFIA content protection scheme; and an IR and UHF remote control processor supporting IR/UHF keyboard and IR-Blaster.

There is a world-class security processor with embedded secure OTP memory, enabling complete content protection in strict compliance with the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray standards such as AACS and BD+, as well as numerous other CA/DRM schemes commonly used in the consumer electronics environment.

And the powerful easy-to-use API has the ability to accelerate and offload host application code, as well as comprehensive universal optical disc (UOD) software stack supporting legacy and advanced blue laser disk profiles.

"By integrating our advanced encoding and display technologies into our existing universal HD-DVD/BluRay solutions, Horizon is able to offer the most comprehensive DVD content creation, playback and streaming technologies, in a single low cost integrated silicon", says Leonid Yavits, Chief Technology Officer of Horizon Semiconductors.

"Hz7120 compelling offering that combines dual channel native 1080/60p decoding support for both high-definition optical formats, along with encoding/transcoding capability, together with our powerful 2D/3D graphics and display processing, iVDR support, sophisticated HDi and BD-Java acceleration engines and comprehensive software stack, will allow manufacturers to introduce the ultimate next generation location-free media players/recorders".

To facilitate faster time to market, Horizon has produced theHzR7120 reference design kit.

This fully operational HD-DVD/Blu-ray development system includes software support for legacy and advanced blue-laser disk profiles, as well as PCB schematics and documentation.

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