Horizon Semiconductors Fuels the Broadcast Market With Native 1080/60p High Definition...

Horizon Semiconductors Fuels the Broadcast Market With Native 1080/60p High
Definition Professional Encoder IC

LAS VEGAS, 2008 International CES, January 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Horizon
Semiconductors, a leading provider of highly integrated silicon solutions
that enable secure video and audio compression & transmission for the
consumer electronics and broadcast markets, announced the immediate
availability of a multi-standard native 1080/60p professional encoder IC for
the Cable, Satellite, Telco, Terrestrial & Mobile triple/quad-play broadcast
markets.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070912/HORIZONLOGO )
Horizon's Hz2010 supports wide range of features and capabilities
uniquely designed to meet the emerging requirements of the broadcast &
professional encoding equipment markets. The Hz2010 incorporates a
multi-standard high definition video encoder natively supporting resolutions
of 1080/60p and below, and implementing leading compression standards
including AVC (up to HP@L4.2), VC-1 (AP@L3 and MP@HL), MPEG-2 (MP@HL) &
MPEG-4/H.263, an advanced video pre-processor featuring motion compensated
spatio-temporal noise reduction filtering, motion-adaptive de-interlacer,
frame rate conversion and advanced scaling, a high performance audio encoder
engine enabling encoding to various audio formats such as MPEG-1, AC-3, Dolby
Digital Plus, DTS, AAC and WMA, a programmable high-bandwidth transport
processor, as well as a multi-standard conditional access/digital rights
management security processor. Horizon's Hz2010 is provided with a
comprehensive software stack and a reference hardware platform designed to
significantly accelerate OEM/ODM development cycle.
"By integrating our native 1080/60P broadcast-quality encoding technology
with our key strengths in Cable, Satellite & IPTV set-top boxes as well as
location-free terminals, we will be uniquely positioned to build compelling
integrated solutions for both ends of the wire." said Amir Morad, President
and CEO of Horizon Semiconductors. "Our unrivalled professional
broadcast-quality video/audio encoding & transcoding solutions, will allow
cable, satellite and IPTV providers to securely deliver media streams from
the head-end to the set-top box, using unmatched quality and bitrates,
freeing space for more channels at lower cost."
"We are happy to see Horizon's consistent pursuit of native 1080/60p
decoding, encoding & transcoding technologies and product offerings, and
expect Horizon's products to play a key role in the evolution of 1080/60p
broadcast systems & professional equipment, as well as in the evolution of
1080/60p satellite, cable and IPTV, and location-free triple/quad-play
set-top box solutions.", said Michelle Abraham, principal analyst, In-Stat.
"With this recent Hz2010 release, Horizon's comprehensive product portfolio
addresses both ends of the wire, enabling broadband operators worldwide to
provide integrated video, voice and high-speed data services anywhere."
Product Information
The Hz2010 is designed with the highest level of integration, embedding a
variety of cutting edge technologies such as:
- Professional multi stream encoder engine, supporting real-time encoding
of 1920x1080/60p, or faster than real time lower-resolution media streams,
using leading compression standards including: H.264 (AVC) Baseline, Main and
High Profile up to Level 4.2, VC-1 (SMPTE 421M) Advanced Profile @ Level 3,
MPEG-2 and MPEG-4.
- Multi-channel multi-format audio encoder, and special audio effects
processor, supporting leading standards such as: MPEG-1 Layer I, II & III
(MP3), Dolby(R) Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, AAC/AAC-LC/AAC-HE,
DTS, DTS-HD (DTS++), WMA and WMA Pro.
- Advanced motion estimation engine for accurate motion tracing with
extra wide search range (in both P and B pictures), capable of tracking fast
motion in high definition content.
- Frame, field, picture adaptive field/frame (PAFF) and macroblock
adaptive field/frame (MBAFF) encoding.
- Entire suite of AVC encoding modes, including partition and
sub-partition, multiple reference pictures, hierarchical GOP, direct and
direct 8x8 modes, all intra-prediction modes and weighted prediction.
- Automatic scene change, fade-in / fade-out, repeated field detection.
- Advanced video pre-processor, supporting temporal, spatial and
non-linear adaptive noise reduction.
- Advanced multi-pass rate control with vector based content detection
and video quality optimizer, supporting high-quality CBR and VBR modes.
- High performance full complexity rate distortion optimization
co-processor capable of fully encoding and decoding of tens of encoding
scenarios per macroblock, enabling selection of best encoding mode based on
optimal rate-distortion trade-off.
- High speed de-blocking in-loop filtering, CABAC and CAVLC engines.
- Multi-stream high bandwidth flexible multiplexor processor, supporting
MPEG2 transport and program formats, as well as essential web and mobile
delivery file formats such as M2T, MPG, MP4, ASF, AVI, MKV, and others.
- Wide variety of advanced connectivity and peripherals including DVB TS,
10/100/1G Ethernet, USB 2.0, IDE/ATAPI, SMPTE-292, Flash, I2C, SPI/SSI, UART
and others.
- Powerful, easy to use API, with the ability to accelerate and off-load
host application code.
To facilitate faster time-to-market, Horizon is also announcing the
immediate availability of the HzR2010 broadcast encoder reference design kit.
This fully operational encoder box product includes PCB schematics, full
software design kit and documentation.
Horizon SoC solutions and reference design platforms for Satellite,
Cable, & IPTV STBs, DVRs, Home Media Centers and HD-DVD/BluRay players and
recorders, will be showcased at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES-2008), in
Horizon's private suite located at Hilton's East Tower HE1769 (attendance by
invitation only).
About Horizon Semiconductors
Horizon Semiconductors a leading provider of highly integrated silicon
solutions that enable secured video and audio compression & transmission for
the consumer electronics and home entertainment markets. Using proprietary
technologies and advanced design methodologies, Horizon designs, develops and
supplies complete system-on-a-chip solutions and related hardware and
software applications. Horizon's diverse product portfolio includes solutions
for digital cable, satellite and IPTV Set-top boxes, DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray
players and recorders, HDTV, Digital Video Recorders and Home Media Centers.
Horizon is headquartered in Herzliya, Israel, and may be contacted at
+972-77-2020400 or at http://www.horizonsemi.com.
Horizon(R), the Horizon logo(R) and Beyond Vision(TM) are trademarks of
Horizon Semiconductors Ltd., and/or its affiliates in Israel, United States
and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned are the property
of their respective owners.
Contacts:

Nir Fattal, Senior Marketing Manager
Tel: +972-77-2020400
Fax: +972-77-2020401
Email: marketing@horizonsemi.com

Satoshi Konno, Senior Marketing Manager
Tel: +81-3-57716411 (CSK-VC Office)
Mobile: +81-80-34115664
Email: marketing.jp@horizonsemi.com

SOURCE Horizon Semiconductors Ltd.

Contacts: Nir Fattal, Senior Marketing Manager, Tel: +972-77-2020400, Fax:
+972-77-2020401, Email: marketing@horizonsemi.com; Satoshi Konno, Senior
Marketing Manager, Tel: +81-3-57716411 (CSK-VC Office), Mobile:
+81-80-34115664, Email: marketing.jp@horizonsemi.com