Harmonic Chooses Altera Solution for H.265 4Kp60 Video Encoding

Altera’s H.265 Enhanced Motion Estimation Engine Paired with Server Software Enables 4Kp60Performance with Up To 60% Efficiency Gain vs. x.264

San Jose, Calif., and Las Vegas, NAB, April 7, 2014– Altera Corporation (Nasdaq: ALTR) today announced that Harmonic, the worldwide leader in video delivery infrastructure, has chosen Altera’s new 4Kp60-capable H.265 enhanced motion estimation engine (EME), a server co-processing solution based on the company’s Stratix® V FPGAs to dramatically improve efficiency and performance of Harmonic’s PURE Compression Engine for the delivery of 4Kp60 content. Altera’s Stratix V FPGAs, optimized with IP from Altera and its partners, enable Harmonic’s market-leading encoding technology to deliver 4Kp60 real-time performance, while requiring substantially less power, rack space and CPU processing power than other solutions prevalent in the industry today. Altera’s EME saves precious CPU cycles by offloading Server-class CPUs, reserving more processing power to deliver industry-leading efficiency and video quality today, with spare capacity for even more improvements tomorrow.

A demonstration of the products delivering 4Kp60 real-time performance will be featured in the Harmonic booth # SU1210 and Altera booth # SU11110 during the 2014 NAB Show in Las Vegas, April 7-10. The offering utilizes Altera’s Advanced System Development Kit, built for demanding 4K and even 8K video transport and processing needs.

In sharing the news at NAB, Mark Hoopes, who manages Altera’s Video Codec Solutions said, “As video traffic explodes to consume the vast majority of available network bandwidth, and as users expect more content, anywhere, anytime, with significantly improved quality of experience, the need for a high quality H.265 encoder that enables typical bitrate savings of 50% becomes critical. Achieving such efficiency gains comes at an unprecedented increase in processing power required when compared to legacy H.264 or MPEG-2. With the power of Altera’s EME solution to reduce CPU processing needs, vendors will be well equipped now and in the future to create products that lead the way as the industry’s most efficient and highest quality H.265 solutions.”

Tom Lattie, VP, Product Marketing, at Harmonic said, “Through a combination of our H.265 software with hardware acceleration from Altera’s EME solution, customers will be able to deliver amazing 4Kp60 video quality while lowering their capital and operating expenses through decreased power and rack space. The complete solution is software and hardware programmable, enabling field updates for continued algorithm enhancements in the future.”

NAB attendees can stop by the Altera booth to see the live 4Kp60 H.265 encoding demo and to learn how the solution could enhance their 4K or multi-channel HD H.265 roadmaps, enabling faster time to market with products that provide higher overall performance and lower total cost of ownership than alternative solutions.

About Altera

Altera® programmable solutions enable designers of electronic systems to rapidly and cost effectively innovate, differentiate and win in their markets. Altera offers FPGAs, SoCs, CPLDs, ASICs and complementary technologies, such as power management, to provide high-value solutions to customers worldwide. altera.com