High Definition MPEG-4 Solution Demonstrated
January 10, 2005
Orlando, FL - TANDBERG Television and Broadcom Corporation have demonstrated a live broadband solution supporting MPEG-4 part 10 (H.264/AVC).
MPEG-4 part 10 supports high definition (HD) television transmission and distribution.
The two companies showcased interoperability between Broadcom’s set-top box decoder reference platform and Tandberg Television’s EN5990 video encoder, both real-time decoding and encoding platforms for MPEG-4 part 10.
The solution reduces the required bandwidth for HD transmission by up to half, compared against MPEG-2 performance. Most HD channels today use between 12 to 18 Mbit/s when employing MPEG-2 technology, it was described. The integrated TANDBERG/Broadcom solution allows operators to transmit high definition programming at up to half that rate resulting in a substantial capacity change. This type of dramatic bit-rate reduction enables restricted bandwidth architectures to increase HD capabilities using more efficient transmission.
Additionally, TANDBERG Television also supports the advanced profile of VC-1 (the proposed SMPTE standard based on Windows Media Video 9 for high definition broadcast). TANDBERG’s EN5980 is the world’s first real-time, high definition video encoder for Windows Media 9 Series advanced compression.
The HD MPEG-4 AVC technology incorporates the Broadcom BCM97395 set-top box decoder reference design platform which includes the company’s highly integrated BCM7038 dual channel HDTV and personal video recorder chip and its BCM7411 MPEG-4/AVC video decoder/audio processor chip. The BCM7038 is a dual HD video/audio/graphics and PVR chip for high-quality HD programming. The dual audio and video channels and PVR features offer a number of advanced capabilities such as support for the delivery of HD broadcasting to multiple televisions in the home, separate HD programs with picture-in-picture (PIP), and HD program watch and record PVR capabilities.
The recently announced BCM7411 supports the H.264 video compression standard, which represents the current leading-edge compression technology in the industry. The chip is designed to improve video compression performance by a factor of two to three times when compared to existing MPEG-2 solutions. The reference design is targeted for use in cable, satellite, Internet Protocol (IP) set-top box and media center applications.
TANDBERG Television’s EN5990 advanced HD video encoder is a 2RU (rack-unit) encoder that includes a range of advanced broadcast features with MPEG-4 part 10 (H.264/AVC) Main Profile Level 4.0 real-time video encoding. Capable of delivering high-quality HD images with bit-rate reductions of up to 60% on MPEG-2 performance, the EN5990 video encoder produces the best possible pictures from 2.5 Mbit/s to 25 Mbit/s with multiple resolutions and frame rates from 720p24 up to 1080i30. The EN5990 video encoder has been designed to operate in real-time TV delivery environments and guarantees no frame dropping.
Features of the video encoder include extensive video pre-processing for noise reduction and horizontal picture resolution resizing. It also supports ASI (MPEG-2 Transport Stream) output, where MPEG-4 AVC native video content can be carried in an MPEG-2 transport stream alongside other audio and data such as Teletext and closed captioning.
For more information, visit
www.tandbergtv.com
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