The press release from LSI (below) marks a beginning of 1080p distribution in ways other than optical disks. The encoding of a progressive source is not much more data consuming than it is for an interlaced version (sometimes less, and algorithms, like wine, are improving with time). While many still ask why we need 1080p since so much of the installed base of HD today is no more than 720p? At least one answer to that question is simple. Manufacturers want to sell bigger and bigger screens and they are hell-bent-for-leather to outdo each other in marketing low-to-lowering cost 1080p projection--front and rear--devices that support those bigger screens. As you recall ten years ago the $10,000 price point for a 50 Inch rear tube-type projector plagued us, but changed dramatically over the ensuing years to one tenth of that cost. Another answer to why 1080p is the fact that the dedicated media room is now an essential space in our homes, especially if we have any ideas toward selling that home. Home builders have also built into their offerings the "media room" once called a den. These dedicated room make forward projection with larger and larger screen sizes practical. While dedicated home theater has been around for years in the homes of the affluent one can feel the second wave about to break from within the mainstream and While well-programmed 720p signals are more-than-passable when viewed under 100 inch diagonal screen limitations of that format appear shortly thereafter. While the 42 to 70 inch non-front projection displays are nice and deliver a "knock out" punch in contrast to our old NTSC standard no comparison is easily found when a big, big screen lights up with a 1080p Blu Ray or HD DVD disk (full 1080p HD source). That theater-like experience is what will excite this next wave of enthusiasm and the small package needed for a front projector is cheaper to produce than the materials-laden rear DLP or LCoS projectors. This factor may even help manufacturers recover margins again considering there if a reduction in the bill-of-materials and shipping costs. While manufacturers have typically relied upon their lower cost models to fuel their bottom line the big 100 inch and great screen is about to become a powerful economic driver. More money will undoubtedly pour into front projector research as the market begins its ascent. Once this market does take wing an endless array of associated products will fill the CE store aisles. Moore's Law will also be more in evidence since the electronics is being sold more so than is the cabinetry. Mass production of lenses and other components will allow for low-cost entry projectors but with handsome performance specifications. Oh happy day. Cable and satellite as well as broadcasting will have little choice but to stay competitive with a 1080p transmission service, at least for their most prized programs. ATSC is busy developing new system pathways forward to 1080p that are compatible with today's ATSC hardware.

LSI is among the first of their kind to produce encoders capable of doing full HDTV (1080p). They have done so in anticipation of that day when telecasters competitively outfit their plants with 1080p encoders and get set with 1080p transmission capability. Oh happy day!

__Dale Cripps

LSI Provides Professional Broadcasters with First High Definition Encoder Supporting Full HD

The 1080p60-capable LSI DX-1810 platform enables real-time HD H.264, VC-1, and MPEG-2 audio-video encoding

MILPITAS, Calif., April 11, 2007 - LSI Corporation (NYSE: LSI) today introduced the industry's first high definition (HD) real-time encoder with performance and quality required to support 1080p60, the highest resolution format for HD content. The first member of the LSI Domino[X]TM Pro product family, the DX-1810 is a scalable and future-proof platform that supports H.264, MPEG-2 and VC-1 compression formats. The high output quality of the LSI DX-1810 makes it an ideal encoding solution for TV program content delivery as well as for Blu-ray and HD DVD real-time authoring systems.

"Satellite TV, cable TV and IPTV service providers want high quality encoding solutions that can be upgraded as compression algorithms improve and as new compression formats are introduced," said Michelle Abraham, senior analyst, In-Stat. "The scalability and programmability of solutions such as the LSI DX-1810 encoding platform give the performance, quality and flexibility required by this class of sophisticated customers."

With the advent of display and digital TV technologies supporting full HD video, content providers, service operators and system manufacturers are exploring ways to deliver premium content to consumers. The DX-1810 platform achieves the performance required for high quality 1080p60 encoding at the lowest possible bit-rate by leveraging the scalability of the programmable LSI Domino[X] media processor architecture. Using interconnected media processors with special high-speed interfaces, the DX-1810 platform can be scaled to perform at 3500 billion operations per second (BOPS) or 3.5 tera operations per second (TOPS) for audio-video processing and 12 BOPS for high-level image analysis, statistical multiplexing and system level operations. The scalability of the LSI solution allows additional media processors to be added for HD level pre-processing such as motion compensated temporal filtering (MCTF) to improve video quality or to create dual- or triple-pass HD encoders for bandwidth constrained multi-channel broadcast applications.

"With VC-1 growing in popularity among content providers for high-definition delivery, the fact that LSI is now offering real-time HD encoding for VC-1 is an important development for the industry," said Tim Harader, senior business development manager of Consumer Media Technology at Microsoft Corp.

"VC-1, through Windows Media Video, continues to be the dominant video format for Internet and enterprise delivery, as well as for popular services such as the Xbox Live Marketplace and leading optical formats such as HD DVD."

"We understand our customers' challenges in the broadcast space and we are pleased to provide a family of products that address their immediate as well as future needs," said Bob Saffari, senior director of marketing, Advanced Video Products, LSI Corporation. "Unlike point solutions that only support a single standard with limited capabilities, the LSI DX-1810 scalable HD encoding platform is programmable, flexible and has the high performance our customers need to deliver best-in-class H.264, MPEG-2 and VC-1 solutions. With approximately 3.5 TOPS of processing power, our customers can develop and customize sophisticated algorithms to give them a competitive advantage."

To ensure this high level of performance does not become outdated, the LSI DX-1810 has a programmable architecture with common APIs. This feature makes it easy to upgrade the encoding quality and reduce the output bit-rate as improvements are made to the H.264, MPEG-2 and VC-1 encoding algorithms or to support new compression formats as they become available. Reducing development risk and system-level costs, the LSI DX-1810 is backwards compatible with other LSI encoding solutions, allowing re-use of previously developed software.

LSI will be demonstrating its pioneering video compression technology and solutions at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show, April 16-19 in Las Vegas, at booth #SU13517.

Please visit http://dominox.lsi.com.

Posted by Dale Cripps, April 11, 2007 12:45 PM