Hantro Enables SDTV Resolution Video Capture for Mobile Handsets

Multi-format encoder design for wireless IC’s heralds the future of mobile video

Oulu, Finland - September 6, 2005 - Hantro announced today the availability of a new hardware encoder design targeted for wireless IC manufacturers. The 6250 encoder supports MPEG-4, H.263 and H.264/AVC video formats at resolutions up to 720x576 as well as up to 16Mpix JPEG still images. An optimal solution for the mobile environment, Hantro’s design shares common hardware and software blocks to provide a minimal silicon gate count without compromising performance.

Supporting multiple video standards, the 6250 encoder enables a powerful suite of applications including video messaging, video telephony and personal video recorder. More than just an encoder, with integrated pre-processing functionality for colour space conversion the 6250 simplifies overall system design by accepting standard outputs from image sensors. It also provides for image rotation which allows for landscape and portrait orientation capture, something which if executed in software, would be extremely heavy on the CPU.

“Our proprietary implementations for intra prediction and motion estimation are extremely computationally efficient” says Jani Huoponen, Director of Business Development at Hantro “this means that the 6250 multi-format encoder is capable of delivering better quality video with much less power consumption.”

“Incorporating SDTV resolution video recording capability into a mobile handset may seem a little extreme however, when you consider the convergence of devices in the digital living room, it is a natural step.” says Eero Kaikkonen, President and CEO of Hantro. “Future embedded applications will enable you to wirelessly stream your home movies created with your mobile handset directly on to your TV.”

About the Hantro 6250 Encoder

One Common hardware module, targeted for mobile system on chips
Integrates into OCP, AHB and AXI bus based designs
Control software and drivers for ARM processor cores, portable to any operating system
Easy to use API
Can be integrated into the Operating System's Multimedia Framework
Support for MPEG-4, H.263 and H.264 / AVC video formats
Support for JPEG still image capture
Encodes video resolutions up to SDTV – 720x576 at 25fps (PAL) or 720x480 at 30fps (NTSC)
Encodes still images up to 16Mega pixels
Accepts standard (YUV422) outputs from camera modules