Wireless High-Definition Video Distribution

LOS ANGELES - Aug. 22, 2005 - Analog Devices, Inc. today announced that it will demonstrate the first real-time compression and wireless transmission of high-definition (HD) video in a consumer application at the DisplaySearch HDTV Conference on August 23-24, 2005.

The combination of Ultra Wideband (UWB) technology from Pulse-LINK, a leading developer of UWB communications systems ( http://www.pulselink.net ), and Analog Devices' ADV202, the only real-time HD implementation of the JPEG2000 standard, drastically reduces the visual impact of errors that occur in wireless transmission channels, producing good image quality even in noisy environments. While other encoder technology has proven expensive and unable to achieve practical real-time HD video compression, JPEG2000 enables high-quality, low-latency wireless HD gaming applications, and high-quality, low-cost wireless HD or SD (standard definition) video distribution in the home.

In addition to the ADV202 compression engine for handling the HD signal, the solution includes Pulse-LINK's Continuous Wave (CWave(TM)) UWB architecture, which forms the foundation of a 1Gbps UWB radio. CWave differs from other UWB technology in that its signal derives from a narrowband frequency that is modulated to create a UWB signal spectrum.

"Pulse-LINK's CWave(TM) UWB technology combined with Analog Devices JPEG2000 codec solves many of the challenges associated with implementing QoS for streaming HDTV wirelessly," said John Santhoff, Chief Technology Officer, Pulse-LINK. "Together, these technologies produce a low-latency, highly responsive interactive video gaming experience wirelessly as well as the first lossless wireless alternative to DVI and HDMI."

"Analog Devices is no stranger to developing high-performance components for advanced TV applications, including those in the ever-expanding HD market," said Bill Bucklen, product line director, high-speed converters, Analog Devices. "We are pleased to team with Pulse-LINK to deliver a wireless HD solution that makes wireless distribution of professional quality video available to the consumer electronics market."

About the JPEG2000 Standard
JPEG2000, which was established as an international standard in January 2001, is an image compression standard based on wavelet transforms. The wavelet transform is a technology that applies two-dimensional filtering and sub-sampling (pixel decimation) in hierarchical and multi-step combinations.

JPEG2000 compresses each frame independently, so that transmission errors affect only a single frame, and do not propagate through subsequent images. Because there is no inter-frame processing, end-to-end latency is very low. This is important in many applications, like wireless gaming, where the character on the display needs to react as soon as the controller is moved, something that cannot be accomplished with other compression standards. Competing compression solutions, such as MPEG-2 and other temporal-based schemes, compress multiple frames as a group - a single transmission error can often affect most of the frames in that group, resulting in a very disturbing disruption of the video. JPEG2000 also enables the compression of HD video in real-time at consumer price points, a fraction of the cost of other techniques.

Real-time compression and decompression of high-quality images
ADI's JPEG2000 solutions allow the extraction, compression and transmission of video images at varying resolutions without further signal processing. The JPEG2000 solution features ADI's SURF(TM) (spatial ultra-efficient recursive filtering) wavelet technology, enabling real-time compression and resolution scalability. This is particularly interesting in the HD market because HD content can be compressed once, and decompressed by multiple displays of various resolutions. For instance, the same video source can transmit a single stream that can be received and displayed by an HDTV, an SDTV and a PDA simultaneously, and each device may process only the information it requires.

Stored, compressed video can also be reduced in size, without decoding, by deleting some of the stored data - all frames are still represented, but at a lower level of quality than the original. This is attractive in DVR applications, where programs can be initially recorded at the highest quality, but later reduced in size to free up disk space for more compressed content. Currently, the only HD-DVRs available are those that are built into a set-top box product and record precompressed video streams, since real-time HD video compression using traditional techniques is impractical in the home. The ADV202 offers a low-cost solution that can compress the HD video inputs from any source in real-time with extremely high playback quality, and provide very flexible recording capabilities.

The unique wavelet-based codestream also supports selective protection of packets. In the event that the channel becomes so noisy that some packet errors cannot be corrected, the video quality degrades gracefully. An MPEG-2 or other temporally-compressed video stream is considered by most audiences to be visually unacceptable in noisy channel conditions.

The ADV202 JPEG2000 IC
The ADV202 comes in a compact 12mm x 12mm BGA package and is available now in production quantities. Widely used in professional video and digital cinema applications, the ADV202 can be used immediately for cutting-edge video solutions and is the basis for future low-cost versions suitable for consumer electronics. For more information, please visit www.analog.com/ADV202 .

About Analog Devices
Innovation, performance, and excellence are the cultural pillars on which Analog Devices has built one of the most long-standing, high-growth companies within the technology sector. Acknowledged industry-wide as the world leader in data conversion and signal conditioning technology, Analog Devices serves over 60,000 customers around the world, representing virtually all types of electronics equipment. Celebrating 40 years as a leading global manufacturer of high-performance integrated circuits used in analog and digital signal processing applications, Analog Devices, Inc. is headquartered in Norwood, Massachusetts, and employs approximately 8,900 people worldwide. It has manufacturing facilities in Massachusetts, California, North Carolina, Ireland, and the Philippines. Analog Devices' common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and ADI is included in the S & P 500 Index.