Running on an SoC-based set-top box reference platform, the RISC-paired Malone sub-system perfectly decompresses H.265 encoded bitstreams provided, for the purposes of the DAC show, by NGCodec, the next-generation video coding IP company offering the industry’s lowest latency real-time HEVC encoder IP.
Also known as H.265, the HEVC standard is the successor to the widely adopted AVC/H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10) format. “AMPHION offers silicon-proven, scalable HEVC decoder IP for different platforms, including programmable FPGA,” said Stephen Farson, CEO of AMPHION Semiconductor. “The Malone multi-format, multi-stream decoder, AMPHION’s flagship IP product, supports every format up to HEVC/H.265 at 4K/UHDp60. Malone is a hybrid hardware-software solution with embedded firmware running on a close-coupled processor on the SoC.”
Malone supports: 4Kp60 UHD HEVC decode (both 8b and 10b); 4Kp30 AVC decode; and Full HD for all other legacy formats (MPEG2, MPEG4, DivX, VC-1, VP6/8, H.263, Sorenson Spark, RV8/9/10, China AVS/AVS+) as well as JPEG/MJPEG.
Commenting on the AMPHION demo of Malone at the DAC exhibition, Oliver Gunasekara, CEO and co-founder of NGCodec said: “H.265/HEVC is a complex compression standard, but a most important one for video streaming applications going forward. For this impressive demo, NGCodec has collaborated with AMPHION to guarantee interoperability. Even for sustained sequences you can clearly observe NGCodec encoded bitstreams delivering 50 percent reduction in bit-rate over H.264/AVC.”