Ambarella, a developer of low-power, HD video compression and image processing semiconductors, expanded upon its position as a leader in the video infrastructure market with the introduction of the AmbaCast 8000 System on Chip (SoC).
Ambarella, a developer of low-power, HD video compression and image processing semiconductors, expanded upon its position as a leader in the video infrastructure market with the introduction of the AmbaCast 8000 System on Chip (SoC).
The AmbaCast 8000 SoC provides a flexible platform to increase the quality and the density of video transcoders and video contribution links. For transcoding applications, the SoC can decode and re-encode multiple HD or SD streams into a variety of resolutions and bit-rates as required for playback on smart-phones, tablets, and notebooks. The SoC's twin Dual Core ARM Cortex-A9 CPUs provide the required performance for encoding and transcoding multiple channels of audio, including support for Dolby Digital Plus. The SoC delivers the high quality, low bit-rate, and low delay encoding required for video contribution systems that transmit video from remote sources, such as satellite news gathering units, to broadcast studios, or from broadcast studios to uplink centers or cable head-ends. Harmonic's Ellipse 3000, announced at NAB 2013 in Las Vegas, is the industry's first video contribution system to leverage the AmbaCast 8000.
“The AmbaCast 8000 codec flexibility and 10-bit support make it well-suited for high quality contribution encoding applications,” said Tom Lattie, VP of Products, Harmonic. “We are very pleased to be working with Ambarella for the Ellipse 3000 contribution encoder.”
“Ambarella's integration of Dolby audio processing technologies on the AmbaCast 8000 will make it easier for encoding and transcoding professional solutions vendors to support Dolby Digital Plus in their products and will help make high quality surround sound delivery widely available across all media workflows -- broadcast, online, PCs, games, and mobile,” said Jean-Christophe Morizur, Senior Director, Professional Solutions at Dolby Laboratories.
The AmbaCast 8000 SoC supports both the H.264 and MPEG-2 video standards and is capable of transcoding between the two. It enables exceptionally high quality video encoding, including both 4:2:2 and 10-bit video compression and with very low delay. The SoC is capable of simultaneously decoding and re-encoding four full HD channels, eight 720p HD channels or twenty standard resolution SD channels. It can encode video up to 4K or Ultra HD resolution. Fabricated in 32nm CMOS process, the AmbaCast 8000 enables systems with extremely low power consumption.
“With the introduction of the AmbaCast 8000, Ambarella is pleased to enter the video contribution market while extending our product portfolio for video transcoding applications,” said Fermi Wang, President and CEO of Ambarella. “We are delighted to partner with Harmonic to deliver its new Ellipse 3000 contribution system and with Dolby to enable Dolby Digital Plus.”