NTT Research and Development 2008 Review of Activities

As high-definition video applications like terrestrial digital broadcasting become more popular, a need is arising for systems that can compress video data more efficiently than before. Video data conforming to the H.264 video coding standard can be transmitted and recorded more efficiently than MPEG-2^*1 video data because H.264 enables twice as high a compression ratio as MPEG-2. Although several H.264 video cameras have already been put to practical use, they do not have the functions and performance necessary for professional broadcasting usage. To fill in this usage gap, we have developed a professional H.264 video CODEC^*2 chip set (SARA^*3) and HDTV^*4 CODEC equipments.

SARA is the first CODEC chip set that can support the High 4:2:2 profile^*5 for broadcasting materials transmission. Various functions optimized for H.264, such as advanced motion estimation/compensation, rate control algorithm, and pre-analysis processing, are implemented with our original LSI architecture technologies. With these functions, SARA provides high image quality and low latency needed for broadcasting infrastructures. We also developed compact (postcard size) CODEC modules for various high-end and low-power CODEC systems. This CODEC equipments, including a transcoder that can convert MPEG-2 streams into H.264, can be used in distribution transmission systems of next generation network (NGN) video services and in the professional broadcast infrastructures such as contribution transmission systems and interruption transmission systems.

We will develop more economical CODEC systems and study the system configuration technology for future super-high-resolution video communications.

• *1 MPEG-2: Moving Picture Experts Group-2 (A standard of coding high-quality video including HDTV, and it is used on DVDs and in digital television broadcasting services.)
• *2 CODEC: COder and DECoder. (A signal processing technology having both an encoder (coder) for compressing audio and/or video data into a certain stream and a decoder for extracting audio and/or video data from a compressed stream.)
• *3 SARA: Super Advanced Real-time CODEC Architecture for H.264 professional implementations
• *4 HDTV: High Definition Television
• *5 High 4:2:2 profile: A set of CODEC definitions in the H.264 standard that applies the High profile of H.264 to the 4:2:2 color space. The High 4:2:2 profile is indispensable for professional broadcasting use.