DiviCom, Inc. announces enhancements to MPEG-2 Encoding System; New features further evidence of DiviCom's leadership in MPEG-2 and digital media compression.NEW ORLEANS New Orleans (ôr`lēənz –lənz, ôrlēnz`), city (2006 pop. 187,525), coextensive with Orleans parish, SE La., between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, 107 mi (172 km) by water from the river mouth; founded , La.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 7, 1995--A year after introducing the industry's most compact, fully integrated MPEG-2 Digital Broadcast System, DiviCom, Inc. today announced that it has developed dramatic new enhancements for the System that result in increased quality, efficiency and flexibility. The new enhancements to the encoder include an Advanced Video Pre-Processor, Adaptive Field Frame Coding, and Repeat Field Detection/Film Mode. The company also announced that it will be making a portable, Windows-based version of its System Controller available. DiviCom's MPEG-2 Digital Broadcast System is comprised of the DMC DMC Devil May Cry (video game) DMC Detroit Medical Center DMC Darryl McDaniels (rapper) DMC Destination Management Company DMC Del Mar College (Corpus Christi, TX) 2 Program Encoder, DRMX 2 ReMultiplexer, and DMS (1) (Document Management System) See document management. (2) (Defense Messaging System) An X.500-compliant messaging system developed by the U.S. Dept. of Defense. 2 System Controller, and is designed for use by producers and distributors of video and video-enhanced information. In January of this year, DiviCom became the first company to ship true MPEG-2 program encoders. Since then, the company has sold and shipped more MPEG-2 encoders in the U.S., Europe and Asia, than any other company in the world. The enhancements announced today reinforce DiviCom's leadership in digital media compression, and the increased acceptance of the MPEG-2 standard for digital video and audio compression Encoding digital audio data to take up less storage space and transmission bandwidth. Audio compression typically uses lossy methods, which eliminate bits that are not restored at the other end. ADPCM and MP3 are examples of audio compression methods. See audio codec and data compression. and multiplexing. "The digital video compression market is progressing at a breakneck break·neck adj. 1. Dangerously fast: a breakneck pace. 2. Likely to cause an accident: a breakneck curve. pace, and DiviCom is loading the charge," said Bob Natwick, vice president of sales and marketing at DiviCom. "Our size and our expertise work to our advantage. We can react quickly to the needs of our customers and of the industry, and the depth of our MPEG-2 knowledge is second to none in the world. That is what has enabled us to make enhancements to our encoding system that continue to make it the best, most efficient system on the market today." Advanced Video Pre-Processor The Advanced Video Pre-Processor, included in the DMC 2 Program Encoder, pre-filters luminance The amount of brightness, measured in lumens, that is given off by a pixel or area on a screen. For example, dark red and bright red would have the same chrominance, but a different luminance. (brightness) and chrominance See chroma. (color) information. It also enables the user to sub-sample video via a multiphase Mul´ti`phase a. 1. (Elec.) Having many phases; Adj. 1. multiphase - of an electrical system that uses or generates two or more alternating voltages of the same frequency but differing in phase angle filter. Both techniques reduce the inherent resolution, and thus information content, of the signal in applications where very low data rates are required. This allows the remaining bits to be most efficiently used in transmitting the picture. The Video Pre-Processor uses a multi-field look-ahead on the video to measure picture complexity statistics more than 8-fields before the video is compressed. This feature allows advanced compression algorithms to be implemented. Picture complexity statistics from the pre-processor are used for advanced Film Mode, or Repeat Field Detection. The Pre-processor also enables the encoder to read closed-captioned or other vertical interval data such as time-coding. Adaptive Field Frame Coding Adaptive Field Frame Coding is another new feature of the DMC 2 Program Encoder. This feature dramatically improves picture quality by giving the encoder the ability to pick the best vector from a video field or frame, and the best DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) An algorithm that is widely used for data compression. Similar to Fast Fourier Transform, DCT converts data (pixels, waveforms, etc.) into sets of frequencies. The first frequencies in the set are the most meaningful; the latter, the least. (discrete cosine transform See DCT. (mathematics) discrete cosine transform - (DCT) A technique for expressing a waveform as a weighted sum of cosines. The DCT is central to many kinds of signal processing, especially video compression. ) for the most efficient, high-quality signal. Adaptive Field Frame Coding is made possible through expanded utilization of the 13 high performance MPEG-2 compression chips from C-Cube Microsystems, Inc. This new capability, and future performance enhancements, are implemented through software updates; this is only possible with RISC RISC in full Reduced Instruction Set Computing Computer architecture that uses a limited number of instructions. RISC became popular in microprocessors in the 1980s. processor-based products. The compression software or "micrcode" that runs on these chips has been optimized in several areas through extensive compression simulation by DiviCom to ensure the best possible picture quality, especially with fast-motion video material. The encoder architecture is designed for flexible performance upgrades through improved software and adding extra compression chips. Additional sockets are reserved for still further improvements. This new feature, available only in DiviCom's encoding system, showcases the superiority of MPEG-2 over the original MPEG-1 standard, still in wide use today. Repeat Field Detection/Film Mode This feature makes it easier for users of the encoder system to handle what was once originally film material and operate more efficiently and with higher picture quality. Because film and video run at different frame rates in 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. countries, it is necessary to add some repeated fields to each second of film being converted to video. This information is redundant and wasteful of transmission bandwidth, and can be removed by DiviCom's DMC-2 encoder without reducing picture quality. The Repeat Field Detection/Film Mode feature, which uses DiviCom-proprietary detection techniques, makes it easier for users to deal specifically with compressed video signals that were once film, and to identify where extra fields were added in the film-to-video conversion. Portable System Controller The Portable System Controller, ideal for more mobile applications, such as news gathering, is similar to the DMS 2 System Controller introduced by DiviCom last year, but it runs on a Windows-based laptop computer instead of a desktop computer. It offers a high-resolution, super VGA screen, and combines industry standard SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) A widely used network monitoring and control protocol. Data are passed from SNMP agents, which are hardware and/or software processes reporting activity in each network device (hub, router, bridge, etc. management software and DiviCom's management applications for configuring and monitoring a collection of DiviCom components. Like its desktop-based predecessor, the Portable System Controller offers an easy-to-use graphical user interface graphical user interface (GUI) Computer display format that allows the user to select commands, call up files, start programs, and do other routine tasks by using a mouse to point to pictorial symbols (icons) or lists of menu choices on the screen as opposed to having to , a menu-driven configuration, graphical interconnection and status indications, and context-sensitive help. With Portable System Controller, users can remotely configure or execute diagnostics on any component of DiviCom's Digital Broadcast System. Availability of New Features Adaptive Field Frame Coding, the Advanced Video Pre-Processor and Repeat Field Detection/Film Mode will be incorporated into all encoding systems being shipped by DiviCom starting next month. Existing encoding systems can be easily upgraded or retrofitted at no cost to the customer. The Portable System Controller is also available immediately. About DiviCom, Inc. DiviCom, founded in 1993 and funded by a consortium of French companies including SAGEM SAGEM Societe d'Applications Generales d'Electricite et de Mecanique and SAT, develops products and components for digital video compression systems. Products include video and audio encoders and decoders, decoder components and systems based on the MPEG-2 and DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) An international digital television (DTV) standard that is the European and Far Eastern counterpart of the North American ATSC standard. international standards. DiviCom's systems are designed around an innovative, open architecture, permitting flexible and economical digital broadcast solutions over satellite, cable, fiber, and twisted pair wiring. DiviCom can be reached by phone at 800/286-1600, or by fax at 408/944-6705. The company also has a World Wide Web site on the Internet; the URL URL in full Uniform Resource Locator Address of a resource on the Internet. The resource can be any type of file stored on a server, such as a Web page, a text file, a graphics file, or an application program. is http://www.divi.com CONTACT: Corman/Croel Marketing & Communications Lisa Croel, 415/326-0487 (phone); 415/326-5128 (fax) lcroel@mediacity.com |
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