Product category: Design and Development Software
News Release from: Cabot Communications | Subject: Mercator MHEG-5 development kit
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 9 October 2003
Hybrid video decoder speeds IDTV design
Micronas and Cabot Communications have developed the first hybrid analogue-digital video decoder platform to be pre-integrated with an MHEG-5 engine
Micronas and Cabot Communications have developed the first hybrid analogue-digital video decoder platform to be pre-integrated with an MHEG-5 (Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Expert Group) engine, paving the way for digital terrestrial TVs in the UK and enabling interactive television.
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 9 October 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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The MDE 9500 single-CPU video decoder allows CE manufacturers to design cost effective IDTVs (integrated analogue/digital TVs) with only one CPU and STBs and conforms to imminent FreeView minimum receiver specifications that are set to include the MHEG-5 interactive standard.
Integrated with Cabot's Mercator MHEG-5 development kit and incorporating Cabot's Callisto over-air download module, the MDE 9500 provides manufacturers with a secure and robust field upgrade technology that conforms to the existing UK standard.
The industry's first MHEG-5 pre-integration with the MDE 9500 hybrid video decoder is also set to rapidly speed up IDTV design by offering the first completely integrated software package to unify all user interaction for both analogue and digital video broadcast services.
"The Micronas solution will undoubtedly speed up delivery of the next generation of IDTVs", stated Keith Potter, Managing Director of Cabot, whose Mercator MHEG-5 decoder is already deployed on 500,000 digital receivers.
"The pre-integration of an MHEG-5 engine represents a significant and necessary step forward for the industry.
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Consumer electronics manufacturers can now ensure the next generation of IDTVs are backward-compatible to the existing analogue TV infrastructure, while offering all the benefits of digital interactive TV".
The Freeview digital terrestrial platform is based on the MHEG-5 standard for interactive services and digital teletext.
Cabot Communications' Mercator MHEG-5 development kit offers standardised interfaces and components allowing easy integration to significantly reduce engineering time and effort.
Mercator will enable set-top box and integrated digital TV manufacturers to keep pace with the fast-evolving UK MHEG-5 standard and to bring products to the market more quickly and with a greater range of interactive applications.
This allows system manufacturers to capitalise on the fast growing demand for the Freeview digital terrestrial platform, a market in which 1.5 million units had already been sold by June this year.
Cabot expects this figure to reach 3 million units in sales by the end of 2003.
"Micronas continues to break new ground for digital terrestrial TV", said Peter Rost, Director Marketing Digital TV at Micronas.
"With the addition of Cabot's market-leading MHEG-5 engine we are giving our customers a significant advantage by offering a completely integrated software package, with minimum customisation requirements.
This helps manufacturers to bring IDTVs to market quickly, while lowering production costs.
We selected Cabot's MHEG-5 engine because it offers very fast interaction speeds with surprisingly low screen update times.
Our MDE 9500 single-chip solution also ensures higher quality graphics and an improved viewing experience for consumers".
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