Saturday, July 01, 2006
Who Says You Can't Take It with You? Freescale Accelerates Digital Audio Transition from Portables To Automotive
ORLANDO, Fla. -- SCF5250 Audio Processor Adds Features to Support the Latest Digital Rights Management and Video Technologies
Manufacturers of portable media players and automotive entertainment systems are striving to meet consumer demand for seamless connectivity between devices. Freescale Semiconductor (NYSE:FSL) (NYSE:FSL.B) is rolling out software libraries for its SCF5250 processor that will help enable new portable and automotive compressed audio and video solutions.
Since going into production in 2003, Freescale's SCF5250 audio processor has been quietly racking up design wins with many of the top digital audio player manufacturers. As the leading supplier of automotive semiconductors, Freescale is uniquely positioned to transfer its audio expertise into the automotive market.
"It looks like the phenomenal growth of compressed audio entertainment is expanding well beyond the home and portable device markets," said Joanne Blight, director, automotive practice at Strategy Analytics research and consultant firm. "In fact, digital and 'soft' audio products are rapidly entering the automotive industry, as satellite radio and MP3 player in-vehicle connectivity are clearly demonstrating. People increasingly want to have the same entertainment choices in their cars as they have on their portable devices and at home. Single-platform technologies that support an easy interface between car and portable devices will be key to meeting both consumer and automotive requirements."
The SCF5250 solution
The SCF5250 is a second-generation audio processor that provides more memory and improved power management over the previous SCF5249 device. Built on the ColdFire(R) V2 core with enhanced multiply-accumulate (eMAC) module, the SCF5250 supports a variety of universal serial bus (USB) interfaces, including the latest USB 2.0 high-speed (HS) on-the-go (OTG) technology.
The SCF5250 supports the latest versions of Microsoft Windows(R) Media Audio (WMA) and Windows Media Digital Rights Management (DRM) 10, as well as JPEG and MPEG4 video formats for mobile displays.
Freescale Inks Licensing and Joint Development Agreement with Chips&Media for Advanced Mobile Video; Semiconductor Giant Licenses Startup's Video IP T
AUSTIN, Texas -- Consumers hungry for high-quality mobile video entertainment can look to Freescale Semiconductor (NYSE:FSL) (NYSE:FSL.B) and Chips&Media for the optimal mobile video experience. The companies plan to combine Freescale's processor performance and battery life leadership with Chips&Media's MPEG audio and video technology, which is expected to enable a new class of high quality, low power mobile video entertainment devices.
As part of the long-term portfolio licensing agreement, Chips&Media and Freescale plan to work together to define multi-standard video codecs to drive very high resolution video applications in wireless and portable devices, such as next generation mobile TV devices, portable video players and digital camcorders.
"We sought a long-term agreement with Freescale because of their multimedia engineering expertise, low power innovation, market position and applications processors roadmap," said Dr. Joonho Jesse Lim, president and CEO of Chips&Media. "Our advanced video multi-codec technology integrated in i.MX processors gives customers a very compelling system solution to capitalize on the burgeoning mobile entertainment market."
Mobile TV is set to grow to a $1 billion worldwide market by 2009, with an annual growth rate of 12 percent to 17 percent, according Credit Suisse First Boston, May 2005. To address this high-growth market, the two companies plan to work together to develop next generation video IP blocks that are expected to be integrated into future Freescale i.MX multimedia applications processors. This is expected to enable high quality digital multimedia technology and highly integrated multi-codec technologies on MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and H.264 standards with best-in-class digital video compression.
"Freescale's industry leading i.MX family of applications processors, combined with Chips&Media's expertise and video codec technology is a winning formula," said Berardino Baratta, general manager of Freescale's Multimedia Applications Division. "Chips&Media's MPEG-4 and H.264 codec adds real value to our considerable portfolio of video IP and gives us broad coverage for high performance video processing in low power, mobile handheld solutions."
Friday, June 30, 2006
Delphi and Microtune Develop New Automotive Multimedia Systems That Support Mobile Video and Data Services
Microtune(TM), Inc. (NASDAQ: TUNE) and Delphi Automotive Systems' (NYSE: DPH) Fuba Automotive GmbH subsidiary have teamed to develop advanced, integrated mobile multimedia systems that bring information and entertainment into the automobile for an enhanced consumer driving experience. The relationship combines the expertise and capabilities of Fuba's leading-edge automotive systems technology with Microtune's advanced radio frequency (RF) tuners in a TV Diversity Receiver that enables multimedia access and mobile connectivity. For drivers and passengers, these advanced multimedia systems deliver premium radio and rear seat in-vehicle television and video, offering improved communications, convenience and comfort while on the road.
The first product in the collaboration is the Fuba Gen II TV Diversity Receiver System, which employs Microtune's new class of 5102 automotive multimedia tuners. Microtune custom-designed the 5102 tuners exclusively for Delphi/Fuba Automotive. The TV Diversity Receiver System is currently being marketed in Europe and will debut this year in two models, with the migration to the U.S. market planned soon thereafter.
"Automotive multimedia systems are beginning to integrate convergent technologies in digital audio/video, navigation, communications and man/machine interfaces," said Douglas J. Bartek, Microtune Chairman and CEO. "At Microtune, we are well positioned to leverage our RF technology and ISO 9002/QS-9000-certified manufacturing to serve this market. Drawing on this experience has enabled us to create flexible and fully featured multimedia automotive tuners engineered to deliver exceptional performance, cost and quality in a small form factor. In the process, we provide customers like Fuba Automotive significant competitive advantage."
IP Network Video Products integrate with analog products
Offered in single- and multi-channel models, VideoJet and VIP digital encoders/decoders offer real-time video with wireless capabilities, streaming digital video recorders, and local storage to protect against network failures. Automatic Network Replenishment technology ensures seamless recordings even if network has been down. Long-term storage is provided by Network Video Recorder, which features IP video, audio, and alarm information recording on RAID5 fault tolerant disk arrays.
Fairport, New York, December 2004 -- Bosch Security Systems, a full-line manufacturer of high-quality security systems and components, announces it has introduced a complete line of IP network video products for video and audio streaming, recording, playback and archiving. The VideoJet and VIP family of digital encoders and decoders offers high-quality real-time video with a range of features including wireless capabilities, streaming digital video recorders, and industry-unique local storage needed to protect against network failures and provide pre-alarm recording. These products are ideal for a wide range of security applications including highway management, transportation, correctional facilities, government, university and business campuses and large retail stores.
Bosch's family of IP network video products integrates seamlessly with existing analog products and networks. Compared to converting to all digital products, this offers users substantial cost savings by preserving their existing investments. Bosch's products can also be used to build complex digital networks or migrate from analog to digital one piece at a time, based on the user's needs.
Bosch's unique patent-pending Automatic Network Replenishment (ANR) technology incorporated in all of Bosch's encoders and its Network Video Recorder (NVR) ensures seamless recordings even if the network has been down. While conventional NVRs experience gaps in the recordings caused by network interruptions, Bosch's NVR uses ANR to automatically replenish those gaps using each encoder's locally buffered recording.
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