Product category:
Microprocessors, Microcontrollers and DSPs
News Release from: On Demand Microelectronics | Subject: VCP
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 04 August 2005
Processor takes control of HD video
The VCP is the first RISC architecture available in the market to process multistandard elementary streams in HD makes it an indispensable module for any digital video applications.
On Demand Microelectronics (ODM) has announced the launch of the Video Control Processor (VCP) for elementary stream processing of multistandard video streams in HD, the present future of high quality consumer video systems and broadcast services ODM, a rapidly growing IP vendor is a one-stop-shop provider of DTV solutions, including demodulation, decoding and image processing remedies, allowing manufacturers to introduce products that will enable this market
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 28 Sep 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
Vector processor offers versatile video solution
Embedded Award winner On Demand Microelectronics will demonstrate a fully software programmable MPEG4/H.264 over DSL solution at Electronica.
Video engine suits high-end encoders and decoders
The Sven scaleable video engine is based on the software-programmable VSP platform for high-end digital video encoders and decoders.
Due to the modular and highly flexible design of the VCP it can be interfaced to any video processing engine via the given data interface.
thus offloading entropy decoding tasks from the main processor engine.
ODM's VCP is the first module available in the market that processes the elementary stream in software, but despite of the software-programmability ODM's solution is highly competitive in terms of area, resulting in a very cost-effective solution with minimised design and production costs.
Further reading
Processor provides MPEG4/H.264 over DSL solution
On Demand Microelectronics has developed a freely software programmable MPEG4/H.264 over DSL solution based on its Vector Signal Processor (VSP).
Novel architecture brings harmony to DTV
A vector signal processor can form the basis for a software programmable decoder for all digital TV standards.
Companion chip upgrades designs to video
Versatile video companion complements existing SoCs with video encode, decode and image processing functions and can for example upgrade a MP3/audio or cellphone with video.
The newly emerging video standards such as VC1 and H.264/AVC (Advanced Video Coding), also known as MPEG4 Part 10, are super efficient video technologies producing high quality video at lower datarates than current solutions for everything from high definition TV and DVD to 3G mobile phones.
Broadcast services using H.264 need significantly less bandwidth than the currently broadly used MPEG2 coding scheme, compression efficiency is improved by more than 50% and at a much lower bitrate, allowing broadcasters to economically transmit more high definition programme content.
These technical developments result in two main challenges for the digital video market.
One challenge lies in the general trend towards the use of multi format video codecs as broadcasters going to AVC will still use the widely established MPEG2 standard on the chip, next to H.264 and VC-1.
Another challenge of HD formats lies in the high demand of processing power for HD resolutions, which no DSP available in the market can manage.
ODM's answer to these HDTV market demands of multistandard ability and high processing power is SVEN, the scalable video engine.
SVEN is a programmable video solution platform enabling applications like programmable, multistandard video decoder decoding standards such as H.264, VC-1, MPEG2 etc for resolutions up to 1080i/720p.
The SVEN platform enables seamlessly integrated single chip solutions with extreme parameters at lowest costs, making it ideal for the target market of digital consumer electronics.
The VCP has been designed as part of SVEN and is therefore ideally suited for stream parsing and control processing of multi standard video decoding.
In the VCP the incoming MPEG transport stream is fed from the demodulator into a stream parser which performs the transport stream demultiplexing and bitstream controlling tasks like PID filtering.
The VCP is controlled by MIMD commands to guarantee full utilisation of all parallel processing units (slots) at all times.
Each of these slots has its own data memory and is optimised to handle sequential programs.
As typical program implementations include many jumps, the VCP uses only a three-stage instruction pipeline to maximise the program throughput by minimising the number of cycle stalls at each jump.
Two neighbouring slots can work in parallel to allow conditional executions within a single cycle.
The number of slots can be defined, depending on the actual processing power needs of the end product.
ODM's VCP is used in performing various standard entropy decoding tasks.
Entropy decoding algorithms such as VLC, CAVLC, CABAC or Exp Golomb are implemented using instruction plug-ins.
These plug-ins are directly interfaced to the VCP, and therefore can be used as very powerful commands within the VCP program.
The CABAC extension enables the VCP to parse and decode CABAC encoder syntax elements.
ODM's VCP also supports the decoding of variable length coded values.
The VCP has sufficient processing power to process all types of elementary streams, such as H.264 or MPEG2 for HD formats.
It is scalable in terms of processing power and configurable in terms of instructions, memory size and data path accuracy, giving the customer the option to tailor the VCP exactly to the demands of their target application, resulting in optimised chip area.
The fact that ODM's VCP is the first RISC architecture available in the market to process multistandard elementary streams in HD makes it an indispensable module for any digital video applications.
• On Demand Microelectronics: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Electronicstalk email newsletter
• Electronicstalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
