Apical and NGCodec Announce H.265/HEVC Encoder with Region Of Interest Optimization via Object Tracking

Combining Apical's Assertive Vision processor and NGCodec's H.265/HEVC Encoder in an integrated circuit enables significant enhancement of video quality and bandwidth efficiency

MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS, Barcelona, February 18, 2014 -- Apical™ and NGCodec™ announce new capabilities of the Apical Assertive Vision Processor and the NGCodec H.265/HEVC encoder that allow the two IP components to be seamlessly integrated into an SoC or ASIC design. At the Mobile World Congress, Apical and NGCodec will have a demonstration of this technology, which achieves much higher perceived video quality combined with a lower bitrate. It achieves this by detecting visually important regions of a video such as peoples' bodies, using the Apical Assertive Vision processor, and encoding them with a higher quality relative to the rest of the video using the Region of Interest capabilities of the NGCodec HEVC encoder.

It is now possible to link the Apical and NGCodec IP in an integrated circuit with no extra hardware or any software overhead on the host processor, enabling smartphones to address the challenges of delivering high-quality 4K UHD video while optimizing storage and transmission bandwidth demands and at the same time minimizing power and application processor load.

Apical's Assertive Vision silicon IP is a radically new detection, classification and tracking engine capable of accurate analysis of any number of people and other objects in real time up to 4K at 60 frames per second. It is part of Apical's Assertive technology family, which is enabling next-generation camera and display features through modelling the human visual system.

The NGCodec H.265/HEVC video encoder silicon IP supports 10-bit 4K encoding at 60 frames per second. The design is focused on extremely low power consumption and low latency for next generation smartphone applications.

"Consumer expectations for next-generation smartphone video capture make substantial demands on the camera and the encoder, meaning that both have to get a good deal smarter than they are today. Combining NGCodec's efficient HEVC encoder and our Assertive Vision engine enables visually important parts of the scene to be preserved with the highest quality while at the same time optimizing overall bit rate ", said Michael Tusch, CEO of Apical.

"As Smartphones adopt 4K, the need to constrain the file size becomes increasingly important," said Oliver Gunasekara, CEO, NGCodec. "The ability to detect objects and intelligently compress video based on understanding what is visually important in each scene becomes essential."

"Thanks to innovative products like Apical's Assertive Vision processor, it's becoming feasible to incorporate sophisticated embedded vision into virtually any type of electronic system," said Jeff Bier, Founder of the Embedded Vision Alliance. "By harnessing embedded vision, designers can make their systems more intelligent and efficient, as illustrated by the combination of Apical's processing engine and NGCodec's compression engine - which together, use the power of embedded vision to achieve better video compression."

An example H.265/HEVC bitstream, which has been compressed by NGCodec Encoder, using the Regions Of Interest generated by Apical Assertive Vision can be downloaded from http://www.NGCodec.com/bitstreams

About Apical

Apical is a leader in advanced image and video processing technology for embedded applications. The company's Assertive products are derived from original research into the human visual system and are designed to maximize the performance of a wide range of image capture and display devices. Apical works primarily with OEMs and semiconductor manufacturers for whom imaging capture and display are critical components. Apical is a privately-held company based in the UK. http://www.apical.co.uk

About NGCodec

NGCodec is a startup based in Silicon Valley creating video codec silicon Intellectual Property. The team is focused on the new H.265/HEVC codec. The company was founded in 2012. NGCodec licenses its silicon IP technology to semiconductor manufacturers and OEMs. NGCodec.com