ChipWrights Stacks Linux Application Development Kit with Major Enhancements for IPTV Set-Top Boxes and IP Cameras

August 19, 2010 - Bedford, Massachusetts -- ChipWrights, Inc.—part of AD Group—New Linux® Application Development Kit for the CW5631 System-on-Chip provides the components to develop low-cost IPTV set-top boxes and IP cameras and significantly improve time to market.  The Kit—based on the OpenEmbedded build system—leverages thousands of open source packages.

Major enhancements include:

• H.264 main profile support at D1
• MPEG4, MJPEG high-definition (720p) support
• Media player that plays videos, music and displays pictures
• Image processing and encoding application with full source code

“H.264 main profile provides better quality video for a given bit rate or lower bit rate for a given quality metrics. It allows service providers to achieve more efficient bandwidth usage,” says Halil Padir, Director of Software at ChipWrights. Most of the video content on the Internet is H.264 main profile these days. “By supporting this feature, our customers can develop IP camera and media player products with better performance and provide coverage for most of the video services,” he adds.

The new media player is designed for applications in Internet-connected televisions and standalone media player set-top boxes. Key features include:

• TV-optimized UI with IR remote control
• On-screen file browser
• Optional live video pass-through on supported hardware
• Lightweight, extensible widget toolkit aimed at consumer equipment applications
• Modular design is an ideal platform for further development

Another key enhancement is ChipWrights’ image processing and encoding application, which provides full source code. “VideoKit is an ideal platform for customers who are developing advanced dewarping camera or videoconferencing applications,” says Padir. The source code provides examples for several image processing functions available on the ChipWrights DSP, plus, an example of using open-source projects FFMPEG and Live555 to stream live video from a CW5631-based device.  Key features include:

• Video capture from PAL/NTSC video decoder or CMOS image sensor (depends on hardware) using V4L2
• Runtime-configurable image processing pipeline with live display at resolutions up to 720p
• Image filters include: de-interlacer; steerable linear and fisheye camera dewarping; blur; erode; dilate; threshold; unsharpen mask; negative image; brightness and contrast control
• Real-time chroma-key: configurable background image and key color for green-screen effects (e.g. weather map)
• Live RTP streaming of processed video using MPEG4 or H.264
• Real-time control from a PC-based GUI.