Brooktree expands video decoder family with a single-chip video capture processor for low-cost PC applications.SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 7, 1996--Brooktree Corp., a division of Rockwell Semiconductor Systems, has expanded its family of video decoder ICs with the addition of a single-chip video capture processor that can be used in conjunction with all popular media controllers to cost-effectively bring a broad and flexible range of high-quality video capabilities to portable and desktop PC platforms. The Bt829 chip is the newest member of Brooktree's video IC family. The family also includes Brooktree's recently announced Bt848 single-chip video-capture system module, which is featured in Toshiba's Infinia(tm) 7200 home PC. Based on the same core video-capture technology, the Bt829 and Bt848 chips give OEMs important design options for supporting video. For OEMs who wish to offer various levels of video support using a base system design, the Bt829 works with all popular media controllers to support a video-attach system partitioning strategy which optimizes total system costs. Alternatively, an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) The rebranding of equipment and selling it. The term initially referred to the company that made the products (the "original" manufacturer), but eventually became widely used to refer to the organization that buys the products and may wish to quickly and selectively drop complete video-capture capability into individual models as desired, and the Bt848's PCI bus PCI bus - Peripheral Component Interconnect mastering architecture, DMA (1) (Digital Media Adapter) See digital media hub. (2) (Document Management Alliance) A specification that provides a common interface for accessing and searching document databases. engine and full suite of ready-to-go video-capture drivers make this possible by leveraging the speed and flexibility of the PCI bus. The first OEM reference design to feature the Bt829 is being announced today by Cirrus Logic (company) Cirrus Logic - A manufacturer of integrated circuits including the Advanced RISC Machine and display interface processors and cards for use as Windows accelerators (requiring dedicated driver software). http://cirrus.com/. . Cirrus Logic's Combo Card Typically refers to an Ethernet network adapter that has two or three connectors (twisted pair and/or BNC and/or AUI). See Ethernet. reference design is optimized for Intel's new Intercast software application, which an OEM licenses from Intel. Intercast technology allows system OEMs and card manufacturers to cost-efficiently give their customers solutions for accessing Intercast Web pages by capturing TV broadcasts and displaying the HTML HTML in full HyperText Markup Language Markup language derived from SGML that is used to prepare hypertext documents. Relatively easy for nonprogrammers to master, HTML is the language used for documents on the World Wide Web. Web content. The reference design also supports regular TV in a window, software-MPEG titles, VCR/laserdisk capture, and videoconferencing applications. In applications like these, the Bt829 minimizes the cost of video-capture function integration by avoiding redundant functionality and allowing the downstream controller to perform YCrCb to RGB (Red Green Blue) The computer's native color space, which is the color system for capturing and displaying images. RGB was derived from our own perception of color because human eyes are sensitive to red, green and blue (see trichromaticity). color-space conversion. "We've designed the Bt829 to support the trend among third-party GUI (Graphical User Interface) A graphics-based user interface that incorporates movable windows, icons and a mouse. The ability to resize application windows and change style and size of fonts are the significant advantages of a GUI vs. a character-based interface. vendors to add a digital video port to all of their mainstream graphics/video accelerators," said Tim Yates, video decoder product manager for Brooktree's Graphics and Imaging Business Unit. "As applications such as Intercast, software-based video teleconferencing and TV capture increase in popularity, the Bt829 is the decoder/scaler of choice to enable these capabilities as standard features on an accelerator card or a PC motherboard." Another important advantage of the Bt829 is its variety of interface options. The race towards higher-performance graphics is consuming more and more package pins in the accelerator chip for wide memory interfaces. To meet this challenge, the Bt829 offers both a flexible 8-bit or 16-bit digital video interface, plus an additional mode called Bytestream(tm). The Bytestream mode allows a complete interface to the video decoder in only nine pins. This mode is similar in principle to the CCIR See ITU. 656 digital video interface standard, but allows full arbitrary scaled video from the video decoder to be passed to the accelerator. "Our formats new reference design provides high-performance and flexible support for a broad range of emerging digital video applications, most notably the Intel Intercast technology," said Tom Kao, director of marketing for Cirrus Logic's Graphics Co. "Its advanced capabilities stem from the combined features of Brooktree's Bt829 with our CL-GD5446 accelerator. "Complementing the advanced video graphics performance of our chip is the Bt829's array of capabilities that include scaling, VBI See vertical blanking interval. processing, and closed-caption decoding." Like Brooktree's other video decoder ICs, Brooktree's Bt829 video capture processor leverages Brooktree's core, high-quality technology for video synchronization, Y/C Y/C Luminance/Chrominance separation and filtered scaling. A fully integrated, single-chip decoding and scaling solution, the Bt829 takes analog NTSC (National TV Standards Committee) The committee that developed the television standards for the U.S, which are also used in Canada, Japan, South Korea and several Central and South American countries. Both the committee and the standard are called "NTSC. & PAL input signals from TV tuners, VCRs, cameras and other sources of composite or Y/C video. It then offers all the mixed-signal and DSP (1) (Digital Signal Processor) A special-purpose CPU used for digital signal processing applications (see definition #2 below). It provides ultra-fast instruction sequences, such as shift and add, and multiply and add, which are commonly used in math-intensive circuitry required to convert these analog composite waveforms into scaled digital video streams supporting a variety of video, resolutions and frame rates. Other key features of the Bt829 include: support for PAL M & N decoding for the emerging South American market; hardware closed-caption decoding; user-selectable digital low-pass filters; and high-quality 5-tap vertical scaling. This level of scaling performance is especially important in POTS-based videoconferencing applications where the quality of the downscaled video is critical. Additionally, simultaneous Intercast support is made possible thanks to the Bt829's support of vertical blanking interval The part of a TV signal that is sent between each video frame. In North American TV (NTSC), the vertical blanking interval (VBI) takes up the last 45 lines of each 525-line frame. data pass-through. The Bt829 video capture processor is shipping in volume now, and is priced at $17.06 per unit in OEM volumes of 1,000. Rockwell Semiconductor Systems is the fastest growing business segment of Rockwell. Based in Newport Beach, Calif., it comprises the Multimedia Communications Division the Wireless Communications Division and the newly acquired Brooktree Division. The Multimedia Communications Division is the world leader in facsimile and PC modem devices for personal communications electronics. The Wireless Communications Division offers total system solutions for advanced cordless telephony and global positioning systems (GPS) receiver engines and is developing products and technologies to address the Personal Communications Services See PCS. (PCS (1) (Personal Communications Services) Refers to wireless services that emerged after the U.S. government auctioned commercial licenses in 1994 and 1995. This radio spectrum in the 1. ) and wireless packet data markets. The Brooktree Division is a leading producer of high-performance digital and mixed-signal integrated circuits for multimedia, graphics, communications and imaging applications. Rockwell's industrial automation, semiconductor systems, avionics and communications systems and automotive component systems businesses are leading providers of technology solutions to customers worldwide. The company has annual revenues in access of $10 billion and employs more than 56,000 people. CONTACT: Brooktree Corp., San Diego Bill Berridge/Karen Hartz, 619/535-3273 or -3516 or Rockwell Semiconductor Systems, Newport Beach Eileen Algaze, 714/221-6849 or The Benjamin Group, Irvine, Calif. Carolyn Fromm/Kirsten Bollen, 714/753-0755 E-mail: cfromm or kbollen@oc.tbgi.com |
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