Jeremiah Golston
Chief Technical Officer, TI Streaming Media

Based on my example in my last blog of Lifesize’s video conferencing application, it’s clear that best-in-class compression is one of the issues that has to be taken into account when implementing HD. But it is not the only one.

One of our digital camera customers used HD in its video-to-print application that didn’t require the absolute best compression ratio, but a traditional motion JPEG approach just wasn’t good enough. For them, the key was to be able to use motion video to capture a great still shot from video. Think of parents trying to get distracted children together for the perfect picture – this generally requires many attempts as I can testify. With the camera’s video application, you can see frame by frame shots and choose the best one, sending it straight to print. The key ingredient was to take advantage of the fact that the front end could already capture 720p and then a programmable video engine enabled flexible encoding that could adapt to print from individual frames.

Speaking of the front end… It is no small feat to capture images with high enough quality to print as well as view on a high definition display at home. This process, that we might take for granted, requires a high performance digital image processing pipeline capable of handling HD resolutions at video rates. Key elements in the signal processing chain include color space conversions, noise filtering, video stabilization, and collecting statistics for auto-white balancing. The camera must also generate preview images and video in real-time for display on the smaller camera LCD screen.

To support this high-throughput HD video system on a chip application requires a solution that combines performance, system integration, and versatility at a reasonable cost. Solutions using TI’s DaVinci™ technology integrate a sophisticated image processing pipeline for front-end capture, back-end display processing including on-screen display (OSD) and integrated video DACs, flash card interfaces, USB for image and video download, flexible video and audio compression engines using programmable DSP and hardware acceleration, and a host RISC processor for control, communications, and application software.

Programmable engines provide the flexibility needed to support codec customization such as the 720p print from video application and also allow the system to be scaled readily to accommodate new functionality. However, none of this would matter for this demanding application without the ability to capture crystal clear individual images with the highest quality using today’s most sophisticated image processing algorithms. With the right combination of programmable flexibility and hardware acceleration, the same basic design can be redesigned to meet requirements for different market segments and even different regions without losing the application specificity needed to meet demanding system cost requirements.

HD videoconferencing and print from video capabilities in digital still cameras are just two examples of how HD processing must be customized to enable cool new applications. At TI, we are working with a range of video customers who face unique HD processing requirements to create break-through capabilities in their products. While the exact chip architecture will vary, they need the right mix of flexibility and system integration to turn their ideas into reality.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 20th, 2006 at 10:58 pm and is filed under TI Video360 Blog, DSP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.