Barco Silex VC-2 HQ compression cores at the heart of IMAGENICS 4K HDMI-over-coax extender

Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium – November 16, 2017 – Barco Silex, the leading provider of IP cores for the audiovisual industry, announces that IMAGENICS, a major manufacturer of high-quality professional A/V products, has licensed its VC-2 HQ cores for video compression. The cores have been integrated in HDMI 2.0 transmitter and receiver modules and are instrumental in allowing the long-range transmission of 4K video over coax cabling with visually lossless quality and minimal latency.

VC-2 HQ is a unique compression codec designed for professional applications and is standardized as SMPTE ST-2042. Its primary use is the light compression of high pixel rate (4K, 8K) video content to a lower bandwidth to allow real-time transport over IP networks and legacy infrastructure. “Seeing the need in the market for such standardized mezzanine compression in A/V hardware, our video experts have implemented the VC-2 codec as a pair of dependable, lightweight and low-footprint hardware cores, says Gregory Baudet, Marketing Manager Video Products at Barco Silex. “So we are extremely pleased that IMAGENICS now has selected this video codec to enable their new professional A/V product.”

IMAGENICS new product line (4K IMG.LINK Rev2) consists of HDMI transmitter and receiver modules that interface HDMI equipment with coax, allowing long-range video transmission of HDMI 2.0 standard video and audio signals with only one coaxial cable. They support 444 color video transmission of 4K@60 HDMI 2.0 / HDCP 2.2. Most important: the transmission distance does not depend on the resolution of the HDMI signal. All this has been made possible by the lightweight compression (2:1 up to 6:1) of the integrated VC-2 cores.

“The image quality and latency are essential for a professional A/V transmission equipment,” says Nobuyuki Murakami, CTO of IMAGENICS. “The VC-2 codec gives high quality at 6:1 ratio for our low delay transmission product, including 4:4:4 PC content. Also, the VC-2 IP core integration is very easy compared with other IP cores. Especially, only simple register settings are required, and no specific control is needed during encoding/decoding operation.”

About Barco Silex

Barco Silex is the leading provider of high-end image video and security technology. Barco Silex develops OEM solutions for audio/video compression and transport applications. Barco Silex also licenses a wide range of video compression technology, in the form of IP blocks for ASIC or FPGA. This technology has been adopted by leading companies in the broadcast, professional AV and defense market. Barco Silex also specializes in embedded security. Combined with video transport, this ensures secure video transmission and content protection solutions. Barco Silex is a subsidiary of Barco (NYSE Euronext Brussels: BAR), the global leader in networked visualization products for the entertainment, enterprise and healthcare markets. More information on www.barco-silex.com

About IMAGENICS

IMAGENICS Co. Ltd. is a leading manufacturer of high-quality professional A/V products for major corporations and broadcast companies. IMAGENICS manufactures state of the art and cost effective professional studio equipments such as multi scan converters, DVI/HD-SDI/HDMI digital matrix switchers, HD-SDI distributors, video effectors, signal monitors/generators, and network/pc-video interfaces. More information on http://www.imagenics.co.jp