Barco Silex adds lightweight VC-2 compression to video production toolbox

Louvain‐la‐Neuve, Belgium & Las Vegas, USA, Apr. 07, 2015 – 

At the NAB conference, Barco Silex ? the leading provider of video compression IP cores and FPGA-based video solutions ? announced that it will add VC-2 LD (SMPTE 2042) to its offering of high-quality hardware cores for video compression. VC-2 is a light compression codec especially suited to manage high-definition video production and storage. This new core will give video equipment OEMs a cost-effective and fast way to make their tools HD/UHD-proof.

More and more, video is captured and managed in high-definition formats. At the same time, the transport may still depend on legacy equipment with a lower bandwidth. A lightweight visually lossless compression is the logic bridge. But for a widespread acceptance, the solution should be simple, have minimal latency, and allow a cost-effective implementation. VC-2 LD ticks all the boxes.

The VC-2 LD codec was originally developed at the BBC and later standardized as SMPTE 2042. It is a simple intra-frame wavelet codec that was specifically designed for low complexity and low latency. It combines light compression with high-quality lossless video. VC-2 is patent-free; it may be included in video production equipment without the potential costs, legal uncertainties, and practical difficulties of including other comparable codecs. VC-2 by its nature doesn?t require much computational resources. It is a thin solution that may be integrated in existing designs and low-end Altera and Xilinx FPGAs.

"Adding VC-2 LD to video equipment is a smart way to manage higher resolutions and frame rates, and still keep the required bandwidth, storage, and compute power within budget," says Jean-Marie Cloquet, manager of Barco Silex? video division. "With this new hardware core, equipment suppliers will be able to make their equipment future-proof without major redesigns and cost upgrades."

More information about our new VC-2 algorithm

About Barco Silex

Barco Silex is a micro-electronic design house belonging to the Belgian Barco electronic group. Its offices are in Belgium close to capital Brussels and in France in the region of Aix-en Provence.

Barco Silex offers a complete portofolio of high-end design services, from traditional ASIC/FPGA design to advanced SOC/SOPC based system development ,IP integration or design, and board design in the field of :

• image processing,
• communications,
• consumer electronics
• industrial electronics.

We offer to customers partnerships with different selected ASIC, PLD vendors and IP providers, and integrate our expertise in your SoC design and SoPC .

Barco Silex customers include industry leaders and innovators in all areas of electronics, spread all over Europe and overseas.

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