VCP causes a splash in elementary stream processing

ON DEMAND Microelectronics (ODM) has launched the Video Control Processor (VCP) for elementary stream processing of multi-standard video streams in high definition (HD) TV. The VCP can interface with any video processing engine via the data port, thereby removing entropy decoding tasks from the main processor engine, due to the modular design. ODM says its VCP is the first module on the market that processes the elementary stream in software, yet remains an acceptable size.

The emerging video standards such as VC1 and H.264/AVC (Advanced Video Coding), also known as MPEG4 Part 10, are efficient video technologies producing good quality video at lower data rates for everything from HD TV and DVD to 3G mobile phones. Broadcast services using H.264 need less bandwidth than the currently broadly used MPEG2 coding scheme, compression efficiency is improved by more than 50% and at a much lower bit rate, allowing broadcasters to transmit more HD program 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. The second is the needed power for HD resolutions, which no DSP available in the market can manage. ODM's answer to these HDTV market demands of multi-standard ability and high processing power is SVEN, the Scalable Video Engine (SVEN).