PowerVR MSVDX IP Shipping Now December 18, 2006 -- Imagination Technologies, a leader in system-on-chip intellectual property (SoC IP), announces that its PowerVR MSVDX multi standard high definition video decoder IP core has passed the H.264 suite of test streams from Allegro, a leading provider of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC solutions, including industry standard Compliance Test Suites.
Allegro’s test streams have a worldwide reputation in the video industry for providing professional video conformance tests especially for H.264. PowerVR MSVDX is the most complete multi-standard, multi-stream HD video decode IP core available today, selected by several major chip manufacturers for advanced HD video solutions in TV and mobile multi-media SoCs.
The PowerVR MSVDX core is capable of decoding MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, H.264, WMV8/9 and VC-1 at true high definition resolutions and frame rates.
PowerVR MSVDX passed Allegro’s H.264 suite of test streams for both syntax and stress tests by fully matching with the reference decoder. The compliance of Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR MSVDX decoder against Allegro’s H.264 syntax and stress streams proves that the PowerVR MSVDX decoder is fully functional and reliable in terms of the H.264 standard specification.
The Allegro streams have proved the ability of the PowerVR MSVDX core to decode H.264 video at High Profile@Level4.1, which is the conformance point needed for applications such as the HD-DVD and Blu-ray standards. PowerVR MSVDX has also been proven with Allegro's Baseline Profile and Main Profile test streams.
Says Nick Kinson, business development manager (video products), Imagination Technologies: “Imagination has a long history of providing high quality video decoding cores to high volume consumer electronics markets. Our advanced multi-standard video decoder technology provides our customers with the confidence to create reliable H.264-based multimedia system on chip solutions where die size, power consumption and adherence to standards are critical to the success of their products.”
Says Pierre Marty, CEO of Allegro: “Imagination was one of the first customers of our H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile Level4.1 test suites and we are very pleased to have been chosen by a major IP provider like Imagination. Imagination is the first IP provider to have a level4.1 decoder compliant with our streams.”
PowerVR MSVDX has already shipped to lead licensing partners and is available for wider licensing now. The IP was demonstrated running in FPGA at Embedded Technology 2006 in Japan and will be shown at CES 2007 in Las Vegas. Initial silicon from Imagination Technologies’ licensing partners is expected shortly.
Inside PowerVR MSVDX
PowerVR MSVDX is a scalable multi-standard HD capable video decoder that provides exceptional performance per clock and brings the highest-quality image decoding with the widest range of video standards to cost-sensitive, high volume consumer video devices.
With its extensive multi-standard codec support, and the ability to decode multiple high-quality, high profile, simultaneous HD streams on a single core, PowerVR MSVDX is ideal for use in HD-TV, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, IPTV, STB, PVR and PMP products.
PowerVR MSVDX supports all HD resolutions and may be configured to support single or dual HD streams, up to four SD streams or a combination of single HD and dual SD streams.
The decoder supports a wide range of decode standards including: H.264, VC-1, WMV 8/9, DivX, MPEG-4, MPEG-2, MPEG-1, and JPEG. PowerVR MSVDX’s stream decoder identifies the video standard on input and reconfigures the highly flexible modules in the core accordingly. This solution has huge benefits in reducing silicon area and power consumption while providing image quality that significantly exceeds traditional solutions. PowerVR MSVDX can be configured with any subset of supported standards, enabling effective management of codec royalty costs.
Advanced error recovery is enhanced with dedicated hardware to increase resilience to errors on reception of a corrupted bit-stream. An extremely area-efficient micro-controller within the bit stream manager enables high-level error recovery, while low level detectors quickly trap error conditions.
PowerVR MSVDX is part of the PowerVR Visual IP family of cores which provide 2D/3D graphics and advanced display pipeline processing as well as video codecs. These can also be combined with Imagination’s UCC (Universal Communications Core) family of multi-standard broadcast decoders and the META family of multi-threaded 32-bit DSP/RISC processors to create complete Digital TV, Mobile TV and STB solutions.
About Allegro
Allegro is a leading provider of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC solutions, including industry standard Compliance Test Suites, Real-time audio/video Encoders and Transcoders. Allegro products have been chosen by more than 30 major IC providers, OEMs and Broadcasters.
See: www.allegrodvt.com.
About Imagination Technologies
Imagination Technologies Group plc – a leader in SoC IP – develops, licenses and supplies market-leading graphics, video and display cores, real-time multi-threaded DSP/RISC processors and communication and broadcast technologies for the mobile, consumer, automotive and PC markets. It supplies licensable IP (Intellectual Property) supported by advanced development tools to leading semiconductor and consumer electronics companies worldwide. Imagination Technologies Group plc has its corporate headquarters in the United Kingdom and is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange (FTSE:IMG). See: www.imgtec.com.
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