New chip converts up to full 1920x1080 HD MPEG2 video into H.264 format with less than half the original data storage required.

Japanese electronics firm Fujitsu has taken the world of compressed video to another level with the announcement of its first H.264 transcoder chip than can take full high-definition MPEG2 video up to 1920x1080-line resolution and convert it to H.264 whilst compressing the data file size down to less than half of the original MPEG2 format.

The company says that sample shipments of the new chip, MB86H52, will begin on September 1.

The new chip is the successor to the MB86H51 that could handle encoding to H.264 but only up to 1920x1080 resolution but required external decoding of MPEG2 video. This new chip finally offers a full HD resolution MPEG2 to H.264 transcoding solution in the one chip. The new chip uses many of the same compression techniques developed by Fujitsu for the MB86H51.

According to Fujitsu, the new chip enables hard disk recorders to extend their recording times by up to 2.5x by offering greatly improved data compression without any loss in video quality.

While Fujitsu is hoping the new chip might get picked up by professional equipment manufacturers for use in broadcast networks, the company is also hoping to lure consumer electronics vendors with the plan to offer full HD-resolution video over home networks. Currently, digital broadcasts and satellite broadcasts are carried out with less efficient MPEG2 compression.

Fujitsu claims to have developed its own proprietary algorithm that applies less compression to objects where compression artefacts are most commonly noticed such as human faces. The MB86H52 incorporates both H.264 encoding and decoding up to 1920x1080 resolution. It also handles video resolutions down to 720x480/576-pixel for both NTSC and PAL video usage.

The one drawback from the chip’s design at present appears to be a lack of multi-channel audio beyond stereo (two-channel), that’s despite the fact that its audio codec support includes Linear PCM (similar to Windows WAV format) and Dolby Digital AC3, formats that support multiple channels.

According to the specifications, the MB86H52 also doesn’t appear to offer upscaling of standard-definition (SD) video to HD with MPEG2 SD video being encoding straight to what Fujitsu calls H.264 SD format. It does offer downscaling from MPEG2 in HD to H.264 in SD if that is a preferred option.

The chip consumes approximately two watts of power at 1.2-volts when encoding full HD video and comes in a 496-pin PBGA package. That should also make it suitable for use in portable video devices as well.

According to the company release, this won’t be the last H.264 LSI (large scale integration) chip Fujitsu releases either. If consumer electronics vendors can be persuaded to move from MPEG2 to H.264 compression on their HDD recorders, you can just about guarantee seeing more of these chips in the future.

Sample versions of the chip will be available from Fujitsu for JPY25,000 (about $US218) from September 1.

Functions	Transcode	Video	MPEG-2 HD H.264 HD/SD MPEG-2 SD H.264 SD
		Audio	Time stamp re-allocation
	H.264 CODEC (*1)	Video	VBS(*2) H.264 HD/SD
		Audio	ABS(*3) MPEG-1 Audio Layer2, etc.
Video	Profile	MPEG-2 video main profile / high-level decoder. H.264 high profile /Level 4.0 half-duplex CODEC.
	Resolution	1920x1080x60i/50i, 1440x1080x60i/50i, 1280x720x60p/50p, 720x480x60i, 720x576x50i
	Interface	SMPTE274M/SMPTE296M-2001, ITU-R BT.656
Audio	Formats	MPEG-1 Audio Layer2, MPEG2-AAC (LC profile), Linear PCM, Dolby® Digital(AC-3)(*4)
	Channels	2ch
	Interface	LR serial
System	Format	MPEG2-TS CBR/VBR
	Stream Interface	8 bit parallel or serial
Host Interface		General purpose 16-bit interface
Input Clock Frequency		27 MHz
Operating Frequency		Internal: 216MHz / DDR2 memory interface: 324MHz
Power Consumption		2 Watt (typ. 1.2V, at HD transcoding)
Package		PBGA 496 pin, 27 sq. mm, (1.0 mm ball pitch)
Process Technology		90nm

*1. CODEC: Hardware or software that can compress and decompress images or audio.

*2. VBS: Video Baseband. Refers to uncompressed video data.

*3. ABS: Audio Baseband. Refers to uncompressed audio data.

*4. Dolby: Dolby is a registered trademark of Dolby Laboratories.