Philips has a consumer single chip MPEG-2 encoder? I wonder who they worked with??????????????????????????/
Philips Semiconductors Launches First-ever Single-chip MPEG2 Video Encoder for Home PCs;
Business Wire - March 03, 1998 08:18
%PHILIPS-SEMICONDUCTORS %CALIFORNIA %COMPUTERS %ELECTRONICS %COMED %INTERACTIVE %MULTIMEDIA %INTERNET %PRODUCT V%BW P%BW
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SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 3, 1998--
Technology Breakthrough Enables Low-cost Storage of Analog Video
in Digital Formats -- CDs and DVDs
Breaking the barriers of MPEG2 video encoding, Philips Semiconductors today announced the first-ever single-chip MPEG2 video encoder for home PCs. The single silicon chip, SAA6750H, extends Philips' lead in the systems-on-silicon semiconductor approach and allows home PC users a low-cost way to store analog (VCR) video in a digital form on various media, such as CD or DVD. Previously, consumers have been forced to rely on expensive professional equipment that could run into the thousands of dollars.
"Analog tape is the most common media for video recording today, but it is very fragile. Irreplaceable video of a wedding, a new baby or a birthday party can be lost forever. Signal distortions resulting from tape-to-tape duplication techniques further exacerbates these limitations," explained Gunther Dengel, managing director of Consumer Systems at Philips Semiconductors. "Transferring audio data to a digital storage medium, such as a Hard Disk (HD), Recordable CD (CD-R), ReWritable CD (CD-RW) or Digital Versatile Disc (DVD), is a much more robust way of storing and duplicating video."
MPEG, the Motion Pictures Experts Group, is an international committee set up to standardize compression, decompression and transfer of compressed video data. MPEG2 has become the new main standard for high-quality digital video and provides video quality that is better than S-VHS (Super-VHS). Low-cost MPEG2 decoders, which are necessary to play back the recorded video, can already be found in a large number of products, including set-top-boxes, PC-cards, and new generations of Video-CD or DVD players.
With just a few more components, a manufacturer can now create an add-in MPEG2 encoder card for a home PC for a few hundred dollars - far below the cost of similar MPEG2 systems that have been produced so far.
"The analog video signal contains masses of information," added Mr. Dengel. "By turning this into a digital signal, the information can be handled easily electronically and compressed to a fraction of its former size so that it fits comfortably onto the hard disk of a PC without taking up the whole disk. It then can be saved on the hard disk, sent as an email attachment, or transferred onto a recordable CD. It's also very easy to make extra copies of the CD for all members of the family."
Technical details
The SAA6750H takes both PAL or NTSC format video signals and generates an MPEG2 Elementary Stream (ES) compliant to MPEG2 Main Profile @ Main Level (MP@ML) encoding. This output is fully compliant with the MPEG2 standard (ISO 13818-2) and is compatible to a 16-bit parallel interface with Motorola (68xxx like) or Intel (xxx86 like) protocol style.
The SAA6750H uses motion estimation algorithms that were specially developed in the Philips Research Laboratories to achieve both a high-quality and a high-compression factor at very low cost. By using only I and P frames (B frames are not used), a significant reduction in overall system build cost is achieved, e.g. only 2MB of DRAM is needed compared to at least 4MB for IPB coding, and edit functionality of the compressed streams is improved. High picture quality (much better than S-VHS) can be reached at around 4-8Mbit/sec.
Another refinement of Philips Semiconductors' new design is a sophisticated algorithm that reduces noise in the input video before it is compressed. This is particularly important for home recordings, which are usually noisy, as compression algorithms by nature tend to enhance the disturbing effects of noise. The SAA6750H is the first device to use a patented, motion-compensated temporal noise filtering technique, which Philips developed for professional equipment to get rid of any noise and deliver a picture quality that can be even better than the original.
The software algorithms all run on a specially developed on-chip, high performance processor accompanied by over 20KB of on-chip microcode in RAM. This approach of using programmable microcode software provides considerable flexibility to customize and adapt the functionality of the chip.
Other applications include using the chip to encode broadcast-quality video for storage on disc or encoded transmission.
PC add-in card design
For this application, the SAA6750H has been optimized to work with two other ICs from Philips Semiconductors. The SAA7111 family of ICs, which convert analog TV signals into a digital format and the SAA7146 PCI bridge, master IC, which transfers the data from the card into the PC.
About Philips Semiconductors
Philips Semiconductors, Inc., a subsidiary of Philips Electronics North America Corporation and an affiliate of Philips Electronics NV, headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, is the ninth largest semiconductor supplier in the world. Philips Semiconductors' innovations in digital audio, video and mobile technology position the company as a leader in the consumer, multimedia and wireless communications markets. Sales offices are located in all major markets around the world and are supported by regional customer applications labs. Additional information on Philips Semiconductors can be found on the home page at www.semiconductors.philips.com .
CONTACT: Philips Semiconductors
Jodi Guilbault, 408/991-2332
Jodi.Guilbault@sv.sc.philips.com
or
Miller/Shandwick Technologies
Richard Cline, 650/962-9550
rcline@miller.shandwick.com |
