Product category:
Communications ICs (Wired)
News Release from: Horizon Semiconductors | Subject: Hz2010
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 09 January 2008
Professional encoder spans broadcast
markets
Supports wide range of features and capabilities designed to meet the emerging requirements of the broadcast and professional encoding equipment markets.
Horizon Semiconductors has announced the immediate availability of a multistandard native 1080/60p professional encoder IC for the cable, satellite, telco, terrestrial and mobile triple/quad-play broadcast markets Horizon's Hz2010 supports wide range of features and capabilities uniquely designed to meet the emerging requirements of the broadcast and professional encoding equipment markets
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 20 Nov 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
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The Hz2010 incorporates a multi-standard high definition video encoder natively supporting resolutions of 1080/60p and below, and implementing leading compression standards including AVC (up to HP@L4.2), VC-1 (AP@L3 and MP@HL), MPEG-2 (MP@HL) and MPEG-4/H.263, an advanced video pre-processor featuring motion compensated spatio-temporal noise reduction filtering, motion-adaptive de-interlacer, frame rate conversion and advanced scaling, a high performance audio encoder engine enabling encoding to various audio formats such as MPEG-1, AC-3, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS, AAC and WMA, a programmable high-bandwidth transport processor, as well as a multistandard conditional access/digital rights management security processor.
Horizon'sHz2010 is provided with a comprehensive software stack and a reference hardware platform designed to significantly accelerate OEM/ODM development cycle.
"By integrating our native 1080/60P broadcast-quality encoding technology with our key strengths in cable, satellite and IPTV set-top boxes as well as location-free terminals, we will be uniquely positioned to build compelling integrated solutions for both ends of the wire", says Amir Morad, President and CEO of Horizon Semiconductors.
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"Our unrivalled professional broadcast-quality video/audio encoding and transcoding solutions, will allow cable, satellite and IPTV providers to securely deliver media streams from the head-end to the set-top box, using unmatched quality and bitrates, freeing space for more channels at lower cost".
"We are happy to see Horizon's consistent pursuit of native 1080/60p decoding, encoding and transcoding technologies and product offerings, and expect Horizon's products to play a key role in the evolution of 1080/60p broadcast systems and professional equipment, as well as in the evolution of 1080/60p satellite, cable and IPTV, and location-free triple/quad-play set-top box solutions", says Michelle Abraham, Principal Analyst, In-Stat.
"With this recent Hz2010 release, Horizon's comprehensive product portfolio addresses both ends of the wire, enabling broadband operators worldwide to provide integrated video, voice and high-speed data services anywhere".
The Hz2010 is designed with the highest level of integration, embedding a variety of cutting edge technologies.
Its professional multistream encoder engine supports real-time encoding of 1920x1080/60p, or faster than real time lower-resolution media streams, using leading compression standards including: H.264 (AVC) Baseline, Main and High Profile up to Level 4.2, VC-1 (SMPTE 421M) Advanced Profile @ Level 3, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4.
The multichannel multiformat audio encoder and special audio effects processor support leading standards such as: MPEG-1 Layer I, II and III (MP3), Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, AAC/AAC-LC/AAC-HE, DTS, DTS-HD (DTS++), WMA and WMA Pro.
An advanced motion estimation engine provides accurate motion tracing with extra wide search range (in both P and B pictures), capable of tracking fast motion in high definition content.
Also included are: frame, field, picture adaptive field/frame (PAFF) and macroblock adaptive field/frame (MBAFF) encoding; an entire suite of AVC encoding modes, including partition and subpartition, multiple reference pictures, hierarchical GOP, direct and direct 8x8 modes, all intra-prediction modes and weighted prediction; automatic scene change, fade-in/fade-out, repeated field detection; an advanced video preprocessor, supporting temporal, spatial and nonlinear adaptive noise reduction; and advanced multipass rate control with vector based content detection and video quality optimiser, supporting high-quality CBR and VBR modes.
A high-performance full complexity rate distortion optimisation coprocessor is capable of fully encoding and decoding of tens of encoding scenarios per macroblock, enabling selection of best encoding mode based on optimal rate-distortion tradeoff.
To facilitate faster time to market, the HzR2010 broadcast encoder reference design kit is also available now.
This fully operational encoder box product includes PCB schematics, full software design kit and documentation.
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