Broadcom Chips Bring 1080p DivX Video to Digital TVs

DivX, Inc., a digital media company, announced the high-definition (HD) DivX Certification of three new digital television (DTV) system-on-a-chip (SoC) chip solutions from Broadcom Corporation.

The BCM3548, BCM3549 and BCM3556 are Broadcom's latest highly integrated single-chip DTV SoC solutions that allow TV manufacturers to offer their customers a variety of next-generation features and support including the benefit of seamlessly integrating DivX technology for full high-definition digital video at the 1080p profile.

"DivX has proven to be a major influencer in bridging the gap between digital video on the PC and consumer electronics," said Dave DiOro, Broadcom's Vice President and General Manager, Digital Television. "With the increasing demand for devices that support DivX such as digital televisions, we are pleased to continue working with DivX in developing solutions that deliver the seamless integration of high-definition video."

Digital televisions based on the latest Broadcom DTV designs give consumers the ability to play back DivX HD digital video across a variety of mediums. Video may be streamed over a wired or wireless home network or enjoyed via a range of USB connected devices, such as flash drives, portable media players (PMPs), and external hard drives.

DivX technology significantly compresses digital video without sacrificing premium visual quality and DivX Certification ensures this video can be experienced across a variety of consumer electronics devices including Blu-ray players, mobile phones, in-car media players, set-top boxes, and personal media players. This improved compression makes it easier to move and share high-quality content between devices, making the entertainment experience more enjoyable for consumers. By supporting HD DivX, the BCM3548, BCM3549 and BCM3556 products will play an important role in bringing these technology benefits to the market.

"These new chips from Broadcom provide digital television manufacturers with a premium solution for high-definition digital video," said Patrice Lagrange, Senior Vice President, Products, DivX, Inc. "We are delighted to work with Broadcom and believe these chips highlight our increasing significance within an important product category."

These DTV SoC solutions feature an advanced multi-format decoder, network connectivity, a 3D graphical user interface and unique 3D color management. The BCM3556 DTV SoC also adds compatibility for worldwide standards including digital video broadcast (DVB)-based platforms to address European and Asian markets while the BCM3548 and BCM3549 target the U.S. market.

Products that bear the DivX Certified logo have undergone a rigorous testing program to ensure interoperability, security and visual quality. DivX Certified products enable consumers to create, play, and share high-quality video content across a range of devices and platforms.

Digital Rapids Takes H.264 Encoding and Streaming to New Heights

Digital Rapids -- a leading developer of solutions for bringing television, video and movie content to the latest generation of viewing devices -- unveiled new real-time, high definition encoding capabilities for the Digital Rapids Studio AVC Encoder software. Combining the real-time performance previously only available in hardware encoders with the feature and format flexibility of a software-centric solution, the Digital Rapids Studio AVC Encoder will support H.264 ingest, encoding, transcoding and streaming in high definition formats including 720p, 1080p and 1080i. The enhanced HD H.264 capabilities will also be available in upcoming models of the StreamZ Live family of live streaming encoders.

Digital Rapids Studio AVC Encoder is an optional module for Digital Rapids' StreamZ and StreamZHD media encoding servers and the Digital Rapids Transcode Manager enterprise-class transcoding software, providing premium-quality video encoding in the H.264 (AVC, or MPEG-4 Part 10) compression format for distribution across multiple viewing platforms. StreamZ Live encoders bring the same outstanding output quality and reliability to a dedicated live streaming platform.

"Until now, users of the H.264 compression format have been forced to choose between the flexibility and feature-richness of software-based encoding solutions, and the real-time performance of hardware-based encoders," said Brian Stevenson, Director of Product Management at Digital Rapids. "Our new HD H.264 enhancements offer the best of both worlds, while continuing our tradition of offering outstanding visual quality."

Digital Rapids Studio AVC Encoder continues to deliver superior quality from its software-based compression architecture than that available with typical hardware encoders. When used with StreamZ and StreamZHD, the Studio AVC Encoder also continues to leverage those systems' acclaimed hardware-based pre-processing to optimize output quality and bandwidth efficiency in the compressed result. StreamZ and StreamZHD continue to raise the bar for multi-format encoding solutions, seamlessly supporting three-screen experiences with real-time encoding and streaming in multiple formats targeting a broad range of devices.