No Cost Overruns

Recently, as part of an ASIC licensing/custom design effort, we have found that other services vendors are costing unbelievable dollars and project time.  Why is that happening?  Because the other service vendor is way over its head in the project that they took on.

At video-cores.com we specialize in Media (Video and Embedded Audio) and Media-related cores (one SDR SDRAM controller) and as specialists we can reliably deliver Intellectual Property (IP) and complete custom designs on time, on budget and with the ability to positively influence other modules connected to ours.  In one recent case we were able to point out that the efficiency of a DDR Arbiter that our core connected to only would only allow 30% of the peak DDR bandwidth available and also presented alternatives to increase the efficiency of the DDR Arbiter to 70% through our expertise with Media Systems-on-a-Chip (SOCs).

As our Semiconductor industry starts through another efficiency transformation, it becomes not only more critical but also clearer to use the appropriate partners to help complete projects.

Be sure that video-cores.com will help your Media project be on schedule.

RAUL LOPEZ

We are an Ecosystem

During these times of financial uncertainty and fear I believe that it is important to realize that our economy is an Ecosystem.

It is not possible to stop spending completely, and we will not do it.  We will continue to purchase recyclable printing paper and low-power-consumption high-performance computers, among other things.

We will reduce our expenses, like most companies, but we will continue to enhance our existing products and create new ones with an important emphasis on one of our Core Values(R): Quality.

I learned from the best salesperson that I know that a good product or service provider SAVES MONEY to its customers.  That is what video-cores.com does.  We help cut development costs, cut risk and accelerate time-to-market for anybody making ASICs, eASICs(R) or FPGAs.

Please stay-tuned for new product and partnership announcements coming soon.

RAUL LOPEZ, General Manager, video-cores.com

Negative Risk

I few months ago I attended a customer meeting where Risk was assigned to different modules in a project.  The numbering went from 1 (low) to 10 (high) and a module that matched the requirements of one of our cores had a Risk number of 10 as there was no competence in our customer’s company in that area before engaging with video-cores.com .

We presented our core, ran customer-provided still-images and video through our core test bench, and got an approval for use in the project.  In the process of presenting the core the customer asked if we could help integrate it as well.

In the integration process we saw that the core talked not only to other video-related modules but also to a memory controller.  Analyzing the interactions with those modules we found architectural errors in the design of those modules.

In summary, not only we reduced the risk associated with a video-related module that was replaced with one of our cores but also reduced the risk associated with modules that our core connected to effectively providing a “negative risk” associated with our module that reduced the risk in the whole project.

Feel free to drop us a line or visit us at our new office located at:

900 E. Hamilton Ave., Suite 100, Campbell, CA 95008

RAUL

Which core should I use?

When talking to a potential customer that has its own non-standard video compression about how to output video with embedded-audio support through standard interfaces, the customer asked “Which core should I use?”  The answer was that for what he wanted to do, he needed more than one video-cores.com core.

Our cores are simple by design and they are small in size so that the minimal functionality that a customer could need is there, then, the cores connect to each other with minimal or no glue logic.

The potential customer wanted to be able to send standard-definition (SD) or high-definition (HD) video with embedded audio through an SDI bit-serial channel and the answer to his question was to use the following cores: vc_272m_291mo (SMPTE 272M/291M encoder) to embed up to 16 channels of AES/EBU 20-bit audio or up to 12 channels of 24-bit audio through the SD part of the design and the vc_299m_291mo (SMPTE 299M/291M) to embed up to 16 24-bit audio channels through the HD part of the design.  Then the customer needed the vc_656o (CCIR/ITU-R 656) encoder to output the video and embed the audio through a 10-bit SD parallel stream and the vc_274m_296mo (SMPTE 274M/296M) encoder to output the video and embed the audio through a 20-bit HD parallel stream.  Finally the customer could use off-the-shelf SMPTE 259M (SDI) and SMPTE 292M(HD-SDI) chips to create the final serial stream (our own SMPTE 259M and SMPTE 292M cores are still in Beta Testing).

What we have found in more than three years of working with leading-edge customers in Broadcast, Consumer and Surveillance, is that the needs are varied where sometimes a customer only needs an encoder, sometimes only a decoder, sometimes a codec, so if the core is complex and is only a codec, the customer would be wasting valuable logic if it does not happen to get synthesized out.

So, the answer is usually going to be either one simple core for a simple function or a collection of cores for a complex function.  Let us know as much as you can about your end application and we will be glad to recommend which cores to use.

RAUL

NAB 2008 Report Part I

Yesterday I was at the NAB show for the day meeting customers and also checking out new trends, new products and meeting potential customers and partners.

Our customers are implementing Video and Embedded Audio over SDI/HD-SDI using our SD vc_656o/vc_272m_291mo and HD vc_274m_296mo/vc_299m_291mo pairs of cores.

Company and product names will be omitted from the NAB 2008 show report.

In 2007 the rage was 3G Video, everybody was announcing some system-level product, FPGA or chip with 3G video support (as a single link used for 1080p 50/60 among other resolutions).

This year the “rage” was actually all over the place.

The largest Professional Video companies were presenting their AVCHD (H.264-based) camcorders showing how they were much better than HDV camcorders (which are MPEG-2 based) .

Another trend was higher-than-HD resolutions, one was called “QuadHD” which was 3840 x 2160 (2X in each dimension of 1080p).  At least two manufacturers were showing 50+ inch LCD-based panels with that resolution which looked impressive albeit a bit soft and others where the Digital Cinema 2K, 3K and 4K.  There were screenings of 2K and 4K movies using projectors which were very impressive as they allowed you to sit at half the distance of where you start seeing resolution-related artifacts on 1080p video.

One surprise was 1080p 50/60 support for Broadcasts.  A demonstration showed runners on an European event and their movement was more natural than if the video had been 1080p 24/25/30 but still not quite as realistic as watching people move.

Several manufacturers were showing how they are moving away from tape and into solid-state storage specifically SD cards for video storage with capacities up to 32GB about to appear for sale.

How do the above trends influence the video-cores.com portfolio?

Some of the trends don’t affect the portfolio since most of our cores are resolution and bit-depth independent and the cores are already designed to run at twice the speed of current HD offerings which require a clock of up to 74.25 MHz (all cores are designed to run on 180nm/120nm TSMC ASICs, Lattice XP2 and ECP2, Altera Cyclone II/III  and Stratix II/III,  and Virtex 2/4/5 at at least 148.5 MHz).  But perhaps it is time to start figuring out which FPGA manufacturers can support speeds higher than QuadHD for customers that require very high image or video resolutions.  Also, having multiple HD or QuadHD streams will place what today would be called “unreasonable” demands on clock rate for cores such as DDR/DD2/DDR3 Memory Controllers.

More about NAB 2008 and how it influences the video-cores.com portfolio soon.

RAUL

Response Time

We have always been congratulated on our Response Time.

Whether it is on checking on a system-level problem that the customer is experiencing (diligently presenting our approach to debug the problem), or providing information necessary to closing a sale, our team will get back to you soon after you request something from us.

We have been referred to as “the team down the hall” (a 278-mile long hall in that case) and often we are the most responsive company of several considered during the pre-sales and sales process.

We believe that there is nothing more valuable than time and we will do our best to make sure that your project development is accelerated when working with video-cores.com.

RAUL

Competition and Pricing

From time to time I get contacted by another Intellectual Property provider,  run into one at a trade show or at a public place and the subject of pricing of IP comes up.  Everybody brings up that video-cores.com is charging too little, that I should “double the prices”, that I am “killing the market.”

The video-cores.com core prices are meant to be fair and competitive in the eyes of the managers, directors and VPs that eventually are part of the approval process.  Once they understand that it is possible to get a design done on time and with the quality provided by our team, it almost becomes a matter of “where do I sign?”

Can video or embedded audio IP be found for lower prices?  Yes, but either the IP is only provided in netlist form, or it is too big (in gates or LUTs) or it is offered by an un-proven team that makes all sort of other cores.  We have consistently beaten lower prices and/or better-known names because we can prove that video-cores.com offers the best solution to the customer’s problem.

video-cores.com specializes in digital video and embedded audio audio cores that process uncompressed media and we are continuously checking what the market needs through direct customer feedback, partner feedback or by reading online and printed publications.

Feel free to provide feedback and questions to this moderated forum.

Thank you for your time.

RAUL

Introducing the video-cores.com blog

Hi All,

This is the first post in the video-cores.com blog where I will communicate current and future developments in our products, partnerships and events.

Please stay tuned,

RAUL I. LOPEZ

General Manager

video-cores.com