Analog Devices, Inc., the leader in wavelet compression technology, announced the industry's first, real-time video compression chips optimized for remote video surveillance and closed-circuit television (CCTV) applications. The new chips, ADV611 and ADV612, serve as CCTV systems-on-a-chip, bringing unparalleled levels of compression technology, functionality and picture quality to video equipment users. The chips are targeted for use in CCTV cameras, time-lapse video tape recorders, time-lapse video disk recorders, wireless CCTV and fiber optic CCTV systems.

"ADI is committed to bringing the highest levels of compression technology, advanced functionality and unsurpassed picture quality that the surveillance industry requires for growing safety, security, and loss prevention needs," said Roger K. Smith, Marketing & Strategy Manager Video Products, at Analog Devices, Inc. "In addition, ADI continues to offer digital video solutions unmatched in the industry for price and performance."

The new low-cost chips - - the ADV611 and ADV612 -- were demonstrated at the 44th Annual American Society of Industrial Security (ASIS) at the Dallas Convention Center in Dallas, TX. ADI will be demonstrating these groundbreaking chips in the Applied Integration booth. Applied Integration, Tucson, AZ is a supplier of systems and software design services to the surveillance industry.

Both the ADV611 and ADV612 offer a unique "quality box" feature, enabling video surveillance and CCTV users to isolate and highlight any size box and location within a video field and enhance its picture quality relative to the background. In addition, the new codecs provide a revolutionary motion detection capability for controlling the location and varying sensitivity levels of motion detection within a video sequence from a remote monitoring location.

Using the new codecs, an uncompressed video signal (216 Mbits/sec) can be compressed through a broad range from a visually lossless 4:1 all the way to 7500:1; this makes the chips suitable for a wide range of bandwidth applications from DS3 digital phone service and fiber networks (20-50 Mbits) to 56-Kbits/sec analog modems. The ADV611 is housed in a plastic TQFP (0 to 70C) package, and is best-suited for cost-sensitive commercial applications. The ADV612 is housed in a rugged EDQUAD (-25 to +85C) package, making it well-suited for industrial environments with wide temperature range fluctuations.

These new codecs represent the third and fourth members of ADI's family of wavelet compression products. ADI currently has more than 50 customers who are either offering products or have products under development using wavelet technology.

In the security arena, the following companies will be demonstrating products enabled by ADI's wavelet technology at ASIS: Baxall Security Limited of Stockport, England, the largest CCTV equipment manufacturer in the UK and one of the fastest growing manufacturers in Europe; Digital Processing Systems (DPS) of Toronto, Canada, manufacturer of the Digital Detective (the DPS Digital Detective is a multi-purpose disk-based system for general-purpose event and time lapse recording; the Digital Detective also provides advanced POS and text capabilities); LG Electronics of Korea, manufacturer of a tape based recorder which enables a single-standard T120 VHS tape to store 1440 hours of video; and Laronix of Durango, CO, manufacturer of a large scale video surveillance system for multi-camera applications. The Laronix video compression system was designed by Applied Integration and The Dayton Hudson Corporation has selected Laronix's system for deployment in its stores. Click here for more information.

I love wavelet compression. I love the results, I love the simplicity, I love the mathematical aspects of it. I deplore the fact that the mainstream video industry has ignored it and gone instead for the computationally heavy MPEG-2. But that's how it is with politics. Analog Devices produced the first wavelet codecs for the video industry in silicon, the second being a lower cost version of the original launch and I have often wondered whether the second IC was actually any different from the first. The ADV611 should do incredibly well in those industries that are closed-loop -- i.e. those video uses that never have to interface with an outside, conventional video system. But I have to say that despite the number of companies that have looked at ADI's ICs I am not convinced that the company has found the right message or messengers to get the customers excited and busy designing.

Surveillance systems are clearly a way to go with a product like this so that cheap interconnects can be used for the real-time compressed signals, although I believe the degree of compression that would acceptable in low-light applications could be problematical (the Quality Box feature may be able to mitigate these effects to some degree if the object can be picked out from a uniform background noise.) But I think ADI is missing out on a much larger market in PCs which it could take if it was aggressive about it. There are also markets that currently do not use video which could become wavelet markets with that right systems approach: The two that are immediate in my thinking are in the airplane industry and in criminal records. The premium for the rugged version of the product (the ADV612) also feels really high to me.

Both products are in production; the ADV611 is in a 120-pin TQFP and is priced at $18.95 in 10,000-piece lots.. The ADV612 is in a 120-pin EDQUAD TQFP and is priced at $42.95 also for 10,000-piece lots.