Design of an efficient MPEG Video Processor
By : Indra Laksono
VP R&D
ViXS Systems Inc.
Introduction
Audio and Video codecs (coder/decoder) have always attracted research activity from
academia and the industry. These activities are driven by simple economics: better
compression means smaller storage and less bandwidth; technical breakthroughs in
encoding techniques are enablers of new applications that in turn push new products into
the hands of consumers.
For the foreseeable future, moving pictures or Video will always have a significant place
in personal entertainment devices - at all layers through the product chain. Furthermore,
the major electronics companies will continue to invest in these products and the R&D
required to create new products will continue vigorously in the future.
Today, we can view attempts to enable video devices with flash memory and High
Definition, or more hours of content with standard DVD media, as further proof that
attempts to squeeze more video quality out of fewer bits is still proceeding aggressively.
Even as the price of storage media decreases, it is clear that an average video enthusiast’s
home archive is still much higher than commonly available portable flash media today.
Going Digital: Encoding
Today, video or television delivered to the home can be analog or digital. For the most
part, home video content distribution has essentially gone completely digital with DVDVideo
accounting for the bulk of the media format. Regardless of the exact date of
analog phase out for television, Digital Television is inevitable, and in all cases,
companies who are able to provide more efficient encoding methods or solutions for
content are going to have a measurable competitive advantage.
MPEG-2 is the pervasive codec for video distribution from DVDs to Digital TV, there
are now two new major contenders H.264 (also known as MPEG4-AVC) and Microsoft’s
Windows Media 9 (of which VC1 is the current name).
There are various video encoding standards, of which MPEG-2 will be the main focus of
this paper.
The next major video distribution format is HD-DVD and/or Blu-Ray, and the content
will move towards HD resolutions of 1920x1080i.