Sand Video, a semiconductor design company based in Andover, Mass., announced that it will soon offer the SV-IP01, an integrated circuit HDTV decoder chip that uses the AVC/H.264 encoding standard. The company is targeting the chip at manufacturers of consumer electronics items, such as set-top boxes, DVD players, personal video recorders and camcorders.
According to the company, the AVC/H.264 compression algorithm delivers between two and three times the performance of MPEG-2 and the SV-IP01 will use the AVC standard Main Profile with support for all broadcast formats, including 720p and 1080i. The SV-IP01 decoder can be put onto a "megachip" inside consumer electronic devices.
The SV-IP01 technology has been shown at trade shows for the past two years and Sand Video said that the technology will be available in time to include it in consumer products that will be shipped in 2004. Also known as MPEG-4 Part 10, AVC/H.264 was jointly developed by the ITU and ISO.
