Archive | Feedback

Industry's First Single Chip MPEG-4 DVD Decoder Launched By Sigma Designs

Sigma enters the consumer DVD decoder market and continues to set the mark for MPEG-4 firsts

The manufacturer says . . .

ChipCenter's Paul O'Shea says . . .

Sigma Designs, Inc., a leader in IP video streaming solutions, announced the industry's first single chip MPEG-2/MPEG-4 DVD decoder, and the company's entry into the consumer DVD player market. Sigma's new decoder chip, the EM8500, is the industry's first complete DVD decoder chip that provides decoding of full resolution MPEG-4 content and high definition progressive output, as well as a host of premium features designed to propel next generation progressive DVD players. Sigma Designs will showcase its EM8500-based DVD player this week at the Computex show in Taiwan. With the proliferation of new standards, file formats and downloaded media from the Internet, users are now demanding more from their DVD players. Originally DVD players needed only to support standard MPEG-2 DVD video and CD audio, whereas next generation DVD players will provide more universal media support for video, audio and images, including: Playing MPEG-4 based movies and video libraries that have been downloaded or encoded from a user's own sources-stored on a CD. Watching movies and images in progressive format, scaled to high definition for a premium entertainment experience on HDTV-ready televisions. Listening to MP3 or Windows Media Audio (WMA) based music and audio libraries. Viewing PictureCD-based digital photographs, stored on a CD in high definition format. "MPEG-4 technology is currently finding widespread usage within many types of consumer devices, including DVD players," stated Dr. Masao Sugimoto, Executive Corporate Engineering Advisor of Pioneer Corporation and President of e-Box Corporation. "High Definition DVD playback is an excellent application for MPEG-4 and will be considered for standardization by the DVD Forum." About MPEG-4 MPEG-4 is the next-generation digital video compression standard, enabling content developers to create sophisticated programs containing audio, video, text, graphics and interactivity. The object-oriented environment of MPEG-4 provides for complex scene compression at low bit rates or correspondingly small file sizes, making it ideal for either lower cost or higher resolution storage. Based on these advantages, MPEG-4 is beginning to make its way into all forms of set-top appliances, including media gateways, video endpoints, digital cable systems and now DVD players. Furthermore, through new authoring tools and services, MPEG-4 will enable a new class of interactive video to be utilized for broadcast, on-demand or published media usage. Utilizing MPEG-4's compression efficiency for DVD or CD stored media, consumers will be able to enjoy high quality video content, stored in less than half the space currently required. Price-driven consumers are poised to embrace this advantage and record full-length two-hour movies on low cost CDs. This segment may include downloaded content available through DivXNetworks or user-created content such as the output from Panasonic's new MPEG-4 Digital Palmcorder (superscript: ý) MultiCam(superscript: (tm)) Camcorders. The premium user, seeking the benefits of high resolution viewing, is set to move on the likely adoption by the DVD Forum of an MPEG-4 based standard for high definition DVD. Both segments will also benefit from future content that employs the rich, object-based interactive capabilities. The EM8500 Single-Chip Solution The EM8500 series is a premium solution for DVD players, enabling manufacturers to easily incorporate support of MPEG-4, MP3, WMA and PictureCD content on top of progressive DVD-Video and audio CD playback. The convergence of these applications into a single cost-effective appliance represents a substantial benefit to the consumer. Video decoding capabilities include MPEG-4, MPEG-2 and MPEG-1 compressed video formats. The MPEG-2 support includes high quality DVD decoding with CSS decryption and Macrovision protection. The MPEG-4 support is based on the Advanced Simple Profile and supports DVD resolution content. Any form of decoded content can be output in either progressive or interlaced format. Beyond the normal decoding of content, the EM8500 offers a sophisticated scaling and scan conversion of standard video to various HDTV resolutions, which recreates many elements of cinema picture quality. Also supported is Kodak's PictureCD (JPEG) format for viewing digital photo content, which provides a substantially enhanced image when utilizing the high definition scaled output. Audio capabilities also include Dolby(superscript: ý) Digital, Windows Media Audio (WMA), MPEG-1 Layers 1, 2 and 3 (MP3). Additional features include a flexible 8-bit full screen on-screen-display (OSD) capability with alpha blending and flicker filtering, composite and S-video TV outputs, interlaced or progressive analog component video outputs (YPbPr or RGB) scalable up to HDTV resolution, S/PDIF digital audio output and 5.1-channel audio analog outputs. The EM8500 is designed around the system-on-chip concept with internal 150 mips RISC CPU, system interfaces, busses and control ports to implement a complete DVD player. Supporting a range of DVD drives, the EM8500 offers both IDE and DVD loader interfaces for use of either standard or lower cost proprietary devices. A built-in memory controller provides a direct interface of up to 16MB of SDRAM and 4MB of Flash. Additional interfaces include I2S, I2C, UART, 16 GPIO pins and front panel control. "The inherent advantages of MPEG-4 technology are driving the emergence of new 'MPEG-4 Ready' products, which include a wide range of new set-top appliances," stated Ken Lowe, Sigma Designs' vice president of business development. "Sigma's introduction of the EM8500 DVD decoder supports this trend with a fully-integrated, feature-rich solution for next generation DVD players." New DVD Player Reference Design Along with the introduction of the EM8500 decoder chip, Sigma has announced the availability of its DVD-8500 DVD player reference design. The reference design represents a complete solution for enabling the rapid development of next-generation, MPEG-4 enabled, progressive DVD players that support playback of DVD-Video, Superbit(superscript: TM) DVD, VCD, SVCD, Kodak PictureCD, CD/CD-R/CD-RW (for audio, WMA, DivXTM Video, MP3 and MPEG-4 AVI files). In addition to various supported formats, the DVD-8500 provides S-video or composite video (NTSC or PAL), interlaced or progressive analog YpbPr outputs with optional scaling up to HDTV resolution, dual stereo analog audio outputs and optical and coaxial S/PDIF digital audio outputs. It also offers an HTML-based user interface with 8-bit full-screen OSD with alpha blending and flicker-filtering. The reference design comes with the system board, software tools, schematics, layout files and documentation. Sigma Designs, Inc.: www.sigmadesigns.com

The back drop for this product is the increased demand for MPEG-4 products. Set top box (STB) and DVD manufacturers are now looking to make products with these Sigma Design-type next generation MPEG-4 chips. Sigma Designs recently introduced an integrated DVD player chip that has MPEG-4. The chip also has progressive scan (non-interlaced for you who speak computer monitor lingo), support for MP3, WMA, and picture CD, so it offers new media support. In the last year or so there have been a lot of higher-end DVD players coming out that support progressive scan, so now if you have an HDTV you won't have the flicker that is inherent in standard interlaced-type TVs. The new EM8500 is aimed at the mid-range to premium type DVD players that will support all the new media, including MPEG-4. Having the MPEG-4 support means that you can download content or convert your VHS library to a digital video format or even convert your camcorder tapes to digital format. If you're like me you want to store it on a CD that can be played on a DVD player so you can take your home movie and watch it on the TV. You probably want to use your PC to burn the movie into a CD but unfortunately, none of the CD players support MPEG-4 - yet. Before we go down the road to describe the technical merits of the product let's take a little detour and look at some of the issues revolving around standards and technology. Right now the DVD manufacturers are looking seriously at using MPEG-4 for the HD DVD standard. However, there is a contentious battle brewing between the next generation blue laser technology, which puts a lot finer detail on the disk and can support more resolution, but is a lot more expensive. One push in the DVD forum is to use the more expensive, higher technology route for high definition and using the HD MPEG-2 compression. The other faction wants to use the presently available red laser and the same technique to write on the disk. However, they want a more efficient compression format, which would be MPEG-4 or something of that ilk. Many smaller companies as well as big players like Apple, who announced support of MPEG-4 for their QuickTime 6 product, believe that MPEG-4 has a very probable function in the next generation DVD for high definition. But the votes haven't been tallied. Sigma announced recently that they joined a seven-member joint venture, including Pioneer and Sharp, called e-BOX, to compete with the cable industry. ComCast, the number 3 cable company in the US sees MPEG-4 as viable, and has jumped onboard as the technical advisor for the group's first field trial. You might wonder why ComCast would be interested. It's simple, they are looking for a better compression scheme that gives them a 2:1 advantage in the number of channels they can put out in the same bandwidth. They can use either the available bandwidth to offer more channels or offer a similar number of channels at high definition. Additionally, the cable companies are being pushed to offer high definition by the FCC. They want the industry to offer HD format transmitted on cable and terrestrial, and then reallocate the bandwidth on the terrestrial. So cable companies are looking at whatever will give them a long term return on their investment, something like STBs with MPEG-4 would cost more initially but be in place longer. MPEG-4 also will be able to provide more interactivity than MPEG-2, as well better compression. For example, on TV you can dial up an information service and press different numbers for different information, which is what the current MPEG-2 is like for selecting a movie. MPEG-4 is more like a Website - you go to a Website and many of the objects are interactive, so as you interact with one it changes what you interact with next. This may be interesting for users but the ramifications for the advertisers are equally enticing because they could get interaction with potential customers during a movie. The EM8500 is similar to the company's EM8470 but it also has an MPEG decoder chip that supports MPEG-2, and MPEG-4, and then has a RISC CPU, memory, controller interface, the IDE port to control the drive, and various I/O ports to control the various subsystems on a DVD player. The EM8500 decoder chip does not require external chips. The biggest thing on the motherboard is the set of connections on the back. The board is about 6" by 6" and about one-third of the board is taken up by these chips, plus memory, and many connectors. About one-half of the board is consumed by connectors, the rest contains capacitors and other discrete chips. All you have on the board is the Sigma chip and two RAM chips, one ROM chip, the EM8500 chip, and all the I/Os. So, when the standards finally settle down this chip will be there ready to offer the more enhanced features provided by MPEG-4. The EM8500 decoder chip and DVD-8500 reference design will be sold through Sigma's direct sales force. EM8500 samples are available immediately with production scheduled for August. The DVD-8500 reference design is also available immediately. Product brochure and product brief: www.sigmadesigns.com/products/em8500.htm

Analog Main | Product of the Week | Columns | Editorial | Tech Notes

		Click here to get your listing up.