W&W Communications Introduces H.264 Codec Chipset for Live HD Broadcast Applications

Update: Cavium Networks buys W&W Communications (Nov. 2008)

The WW20K H.264 HD codec chipset from W&W Communications delivers broadcast quality 1080i/p video with minimum delay at low bit rates

Santa Clara, California, February 27, 2007 – W&W Communications, Inc., the leader in H.264 HD encoders, announced today its WW20K H.264 HD codec chipset for live broadcast applications. The chipset consists of the WW20000BA single chip encoder and the WW20001BA single chip decoder. The low encode-decode tandem delay and ability to encode 1080 video at high quality and relatively low bit rates makes the WW20K chipset suitable for live HD video broadcast applications, such as sports and news events.

“The broadcast industry is in the midst of converting to the HD format. However, the high bit rates of broadcast quality HD video material poses a challenge to real-time news and event coverage in high-definition,” said Kishan Jainandunsing, Vice President Marketing at W&W Communications. “Our WW20K chipset provides the broadcast industry with a practical and robust solution to take down this last barrier towards HD video broadcasting.”

The H.264 standard produces superior results compared to the older MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 video compression standards. However, the significantly higher computational complexity of H.264 poses a major challenge in terms of power and footprint. The WW20K chipset overcomes these challenges by running at 110MHz only, in single chip implementations of the encoder and decoder. The WW20000BA encoder compresses 1080i/p HD video at 2x lower bit rates and 15% better PSNR than MPEG-2 HD encoders. The WW20001BA decoder decompresses the encoder’s bit stream into perfect quality 1080i/p or 720p HD video.

The chipset has an encode-decode tandem delay of less than 35ms or about 1 frame at 30 frames/second. It delivers performance very close to the H.264 Joint Model. The W20000BA encoder integrates an advanced context-adaptive noise reduction filter in the encoder loop. This not only reduces noise in the source video, but also improves the encoder’s compression efficiency significantly depending on the video content. Accurate constant bit rate control guarantees video quality versus available channel bandwidth over broadband wireless transmission links. Software upgradeability of the chipset makes it easy to apply field upgrades.

The exceptional video quality, low delay, single chip features and software upgradeability make the WW20K chipset the best choice in the industry for portable and on-board broadcast, as well as cinematic HD cameras. For more information about the WW20K H.264 HD codec chipset, please visit www.wwcoms.com/products/.

Pricing and availability

The WW20K H.264 HD codec chipset is currently sampling and will be available in mass production from April 2007 onwards. A development kit is available with HD-SDI and HDMI inputs and outputs, PCI bus and 10/100Base-T Ethernet interfaces. Contact W&W Communications, Inc. for pricing and sample availability.

About W&W Communications, Inc.

W&W Communications develops best-in-class video compression software and hardware solutions for video-enabled consumer, professional, enterprise and infrastructure platforms. Its innovative product line includes highly optimized, low-delay, power-efficient, high-definition H.264/MPEG-4 AVC encoders and decoders, as well as multi-format, multi-channel transcoders. The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA with offices in Beijing, China and Madrid, Spain. For more information visit www.wwcoms.com.