Tokyo, December 24, 2008 —— Renesas Technology Corp. today announced
the HD Video Middleware, which will facilitate the development of applications
for the SH-Mobile
*1 application processor supporting recording and playback of video in
the 1280 x 720-pixel High Definition (HD) resolution. The new middleware will
be available from April in Japan.
Renesas Technology is developing the SH-Mobile application processor for
mobile phones with an on-chip hardware accelerator supporting Full HD (1920 x
1080 pixels) resolution video complying with the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
*2 (H.264) video compression standard. HD Video Middleware is designed
for use with these SH-Mobile products, enabling recording and playback of video
up to HD resolution in the MP4 format,
*3 which is widely used for video files on existing mobile phones, with
the H.264 standard. HD Video Middleware also supports MPEG-2 TS (Transport
Stream), a multiplexed
*4 HD video format that is rapidly gaining adoption in the digital home
electronics field. This will simplify the process of turning video captured
with the camera of a mobile phone into HD video files that can be displayed on
digital home electronics products.
HD Video Middleware was developed in collaboration with Systems Development
Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd.
< Product Background >
In recent years, cameras have become almost a standard feature on mobile
phones, which often now are equipped with functions for recording and playing
video content in addition to still photos. As the pixel count of the cameras
increases, support is being provided for higher definition video contents. Some
recent mobile phone handsets have the capability to capture video content in
VGA (640 x 480 pixels) resolution. In addition, with higher camera resolution
and communication speeds, there is growing anticipation of features such as the
ability to view video files captured on a mobile phone on TVs and to post them
to sites on the Internet.
At the same time, products such as digital TVs supporting HD picture quality
are becoming more widespread in the digital home electronics field. This is
expected to trigger demand for HD quality recording and playback capability for
mobile phones in order to provide a clearer picture when video captured on a
mobile phone is displayed on a TV or similar device.
Previously, video formats based on the MPEG-4 compression standard, such as
MP4, were the norm on mobile phones, but these can only be used to record short
video clips due to memory capacity limitations and the enormous data size at
high resolutions. This has led to increased adoption of the H.264 format, which
provides a higher compression ratio than MPEG-4. Video content encoded in H.264
has smaller file size than the same content encoded in MPEG-4. This means that
longer video clips can be recorded, assuming the same memory capacity (for
storage). Use of the H.264 format is becoming widespread for One-Segment
terrestrial digital TV broadcasting for mobile phone handsets in Japan and in
applications such as digital cameras.
In addition, since mobile phones operate on battery power, it is important
that power consumption be as low as possible during video recording and
playback.
Renesas Technology has developed a video hardware accelerator combining high
performance and low power consumption that is integrated into products such as
system on chip (SoC) devices for mobile phones. The company also develops and
supplies middleware to enable customers to reduce the time required for system
development.
The development and release of HD Video Middleware will help meet demand
from developers of future mobile phones handsets with support for recording and
playback of HD video.
< Features >
The features of HD Video Middleware are
summarized below.
| (1) |
Ability to record and play long video clips with HD picture quality and
excellent audio quality |
The hardware accelerator with Full HD support draws on the technological
expertise accumulated by Renesas Technology to process H.264 data using the
fewest possible resources (such as on-chip memory capacity and circuit scale).
It enables display of Full HD video at 30 frames per second (fps) with low
power consumption.
HD Video Middleware is software that provides efficient control of the hardware
accelerator. In addition, it can be combined with Renesas Technology middleware
supporting high-quality audio compression standards, such as AAC-LC (Low
Complexity Advanced Audio Coding) and Dolby Digital (Dolby Digital middleware
currently under development), to implement recording and playback of long video
clips with excellent picture and sound quality. |
| (2) |
High bitrate and support for multiplexed formats popular on digital home
electronics products |
HD Video Middleware employs zero-copy technique
*5 and asynchronous high-speed transfer technique
*6 to move data between its function modules. These make it possible to
achieve a bitrate of 9 megabits per second (Mbps), which is 4.5 times as fast
as the previous maximum bitrate in the mobile phone field of 2 Mbps, and
enables handling of the large data sizes required for high-definition
video.
HD Video Middleware also supports B-frame, as defined in the H.264 standard.
B-frame makes it possible to reduce the bit rate while maintaining picture
quality, allowing smaller file sizes and recording of longer video clips.
In addition to the MP4 format that is widely used on mobile phones and PCs, HD
Video Middleware supports the MPEG2-TS multiplexed format. This facilitates
playback on digital home electronics products of HD video content captured and
recorded using a mobile phone. |
| (3) |
Simplified development of applications with HD video support |
By using the SH-Mobile incorporating the hardware accelerator with H.264
Full HD support and HD Video Middleware, developers can easily create HD
video-capable applications for mobile phones with limited resources such as
memory capacity.
In addition, since HD Video Middleware supports the above hardware accelerator,
it can also be used in devices such as digital cameras, portable media players,
and in-vehicle information systems using an SoC incorporating the
accelerator.
All basic functions for supporting HD video are provided by HD Video
Middleware. Functions requiring customization, such as camera input and LCD
display orientation, have a flexible configuration that can be changed by the
customer. This reduces system development time by about 30%, according to
comparisons by Renesas Technology, and enables customers to bring new products
to market in a timely manner. |
Following on the release of HD Video Middleware,
Renesas Technology plans to enhance Full HD support to meet the ability of Full
HD video camera for mobile phone, and will continue to develop and supply
middleware products that contribute to development solutions for customers, in
response to evolving market.
< Notes >
| Notes: |
1. |
SH-Mobile (SuperH™ Mobile Application Processor): An exclusive Renesas
Technology processor for mobile phone systems that is connected to a baseband
processor and performs dedicated processing for multimedia applications using
audio and video.
SuperH is a trademark of Renesas Technology Corp. |
| 2. |
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC (Advanced Video Coding) is a video compression standard
established jointly by the ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union
Telecommunication Standardization Sector) and the international standardization
organizations ISO/IEC. |
| 3. |
MP4 format: A file format in which compressed video data, such as MPEG-4 or
H.264, and compressed audio data, such as AAC, are multiplexed. |
| 4. |
Multiplexed: As used in this press release, the term multiplexing refers to
the synchronizing and combining of a video file and an audio file into a single
file. |
| 5. |
Zero-copy technique: A technique for maintaining coherence of data
alignment among processing modules and reducing the amount of data copied
between them. |
| 6. |
Asynchronous high-speed transfer technique: A technique that achieves high
throughput by enabling consecutive writing to and reading from memory cards,
etc., without synchronization with the data processing. |
* Other product names, company names, or brands
mentioned are the property of their respective owners.
< Typical Applications >
- Development of HD video recording and playback applications using SH-Mobile
versions incorporating the hardware accelerator with Full HD video
support.
< Specifications >
| Item |
Specification |
| Supported file formats |
MP4 file format, MPEG2-TS
(Renesas Technology middleware standard support) |
| Max. recording time(*1) |
120 minutes |
| Max. recording size(*1) |
2 GB |
| Video |
H.264/AVC |
Profile: High Profile
Video sizes: 848 x 480, 1280 x 720
Frame rate: Max. 30 fps
Bitrate: Max. 9 Mbps
Picture encoding: I-picture, P-picture, B-picture |
| Audio |
AAC-LC |
Sampling frequency: 44.1 kHz
Channels: 2(*2)
Bitrate: 8 to 128 kbps |
| Dolby Digital |
Sampling frequency: 48 kHz
Channels: 2(*2)
Bitrate: 128 kbps |
Notes:
- 1. The actual upper limit is when either the
maximum recording time or size is reached, whichever is first.
- 2. In monaural recording mode the same audio
data is recorded for both channels.
*** Information contained in this news release is current as of the date of
the press announcement, but may be subject to change without prior notice.
***
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