ECE Product & Technology Summary

   
  ASTRI Enterprise & Consumer Electronics Group Product & Technology Summary
   
 

Established in 2003, the Enterprise & Consumer Electronics (ECE) Group is one of the four focused technology domains under ASTRI. Its mission is to create and expand Hong Kong owned core intellectual property for multimedia over IP technology and for networked consumer electronics and applications, enhance competitiveness of local industries, help the local industries move up the value chain, and capture future jobs and business growth opportunities presented by the newly emerging worldwide wireless and multimedia consumer market.

The Group is currently structured into 6 key technology initiative areas, namely Digital Broadcasting Technology, Home Media Technology, Portable Media Technology, Pervasive Service Technology, Multimedia Communications Technology, and Multimedia SoC Technology. Each technology initiative area offers a suite of licensable products and platforms. A short description for each offer is provided below.

1. Digital Broadcasting Technology (DBT)
 

Standard Definition IPTV Set Top Box: Built with ASTRI's video/audio decoder technologies on a DSP and application rich software such as Live Broadcasting over IP, On-demand VOD with trick mode playback, Network PVR for time-shifting , and EPG server support. This field proven STB supports multiple video (MPEG2, MPEG-4 & H.264) and audio CODEC (AAC, MPEG L1/L2 and MP3) with up to D1 resolution.

Standard Definition Digital Media Center STB: Built with ASTRI's video/audio decoder technologies on a DSP platform. This is extension of IPTV STB with DVB-T and HDD/PVR support with additional software such as scheduled/EPG-based record, play back with trick mode (FF/RW/Seek), time-shifting, ondemand movie rental via VOD/push/USB download with major studio certified DRM and copy protection. This field proven Digital Media Center STB supports multiple video (MPEG2, MPEG-4 & H.264) with up to D1 resolution, audio CODEC (AAC, MPEG L1/L2 and MP3) and pass-though to external sound/hi-fi system to enjoy the high quality of movie. This is media center is a seamless set top box of IPTV interactive client, Digital TV receiver, rental movie player and PVR.

High Definition Digital Media Center STB: Built with ASTRI's know-how and background IP on IPTV and Standard Definition Digital Media Center STB. This new platform is extended to support up to full HD with both DVB-T and China DMB-T standards. This is a combo of IPTV interactive client, VOD/Push/Download HD movie player, dual-tuner DTV receiver, PVR and interactive advertisement client. It also provides additional software to enhance usability such as embedded TV browser, integrated EPG (IPTV and DTV), personalized and configurable EPG/PPG. This High Definition Media Center supports multiple video (MPEG2, MPEG-4 & H.264, WM) with up to 1080p resolution, audio CODEC (AAC, AC-3, WMA, MPEG L1/L2 and MP3) and pass-though to external sound/hi-fi system to enjoy the high quality of movie and TV program.

Hong Kong Digital Terrestrial TV Receiver: This is a specialized version of High Definition Digital Media Center for HK digital TV. This HK DTTV Receiver supports multiple video (MPEG2, H.264) with up to 1080p full HD resolution, audio CODEC (AAC, AC-3, WMAMPEG L1/L2 and MP3), pass-though to external sound/hi-fi system to enjoy the high quality of TV program, dynamic and auto detection of SD/HD channel switches and multiple language supports (English/Chinese with HK specific font set).

   
2. Home Media Technology (HMT)
 
Home Media Center Product Line: Built with ASTRI's video/audio CODEC technologies and application rich software on a dual processor platform, this product line comprises a few products for digital home applications, including
 
Network Streamer with place-shift streaming capabilities,
PVR Streamer with both time-shift and place-shift streaming capabilities,
Media Center Streamer with rich peripheral interfaces, and
HMC TV Player Box to receive and playback streaming video to regular TV.
   
 

The HMC product line includes a universal learning IR remote control to support a broad range of AV sources and a server solution that help penetrate firewalls to facilitate user content access as an integral part of place-shift solution for content enjoyment.

HMC Support Portable Storage & DRM: Built with ASTRI's video/audio decoder technologies on a DSP and application rich software such as broadcasting TV recording while playing a movie from portable storage, this device supports both SD DVB-T broadcasting TV and video (or DVD movies) stored on HDD with DRM and copy protection.

   
3. Portable Media Technology (PMT)
 

Mobile TV (T-DMB) Portable Media Player: This is a low cost DSP-based portable multimedia player device with T-DMB mobile TV and DAB digital broadcasting audio functions. CoreTrust CA is integrated into this device for paid mobile TV service.

Wi-Fi & Mobile TV Dual Mode Player: This is a DSP-based portable multimedia player device with Wi-Fi, camera, mobile TV (DVB-T receiver) functions. It also supports MPEG-4 video encoder up to D1 resolution, H.264 decoder up to QVGA resolution, and AAC-LC encoder for audio, and digital TV recording for local playback. This device will also include DVB-H and T-DMB/DAB to support multistandard mobile TV applications and VoIP capability.

   
4. Pervasive Service Technology (PST)
 

ASTRI UPnP AV SDK for UPnP™ Certified Standard Devices: ASTRI's SDKs support the implementation of UPnP™ certified Media Server/Renderer and Control Point. The ASTRI UPnP™ solution provides an easy way to bring UPnP™ standard into devices so that they can work together with the functionality of personal media sharing among UPnP-compliant home entertainment devices. The SDKs can be run on any 16 bit or 32 bit TCP/IP stack. They are available on all common operating systems such as Microsoft Windows XP/NT/2000/9X, Linux and embedded Linux.

ExHome: Extend Home technology provides a means for software applications and consumer electronics to break out of the home and deliver services to individuals anywhere on the Internet. Adding place-shifting technology to device that once were locked behind closed doors, the technology enables freedom of movement and better enjoyment of home entertainment devices. The offer covers client SDK, iDNS Registration Server, and Rendezvous Servers supporting any BSDsocket based TCP/IP stack. Solaris, Microsoft XP/NT/2000, desktop Linux, Enterprise Linux, and embedded Linux are all supported on a single code-base.

   
5. Multimedia Communications Technology (MCT)
 

Desktop SIP Phone: Built with ASTRI's standard compliant SIP stack, this desktop phone provides toll-quality voice and advanced call features for both enterprise and residential use. It can interoperate with a number of 3rd party servers and phones.

Wi-Fi Phone: This is a SIP-compliant, Wi-Fi VoIP phone reference design offering a high voice quality, efficient power management, high mobility, and low-cost turnkey solution for phone manufacturers. The platform is a highly customizable SDK.

Wi-Fi Phone with Skype™ Support: This is a SIP-compliant, Wi-Fi VoIP phone reference design offering a high voice quality, efficient power management, high mobility, and low-cost turnkey solution for phone manufacturers. Apart from supporting SIP calls, the trendiest Skype™ call functions could always be at hand, with the Skype™ PC Gateway software provided in this package.

Wi-Fi Phone with Boingo Hotspot Login Support: This is a SIP-compliant, Wi-Fi VoIP phone reference design offering a high voice quality, efficient power management, high mobility, and low-cost turnkey solution for phone manufacturers. Apart from supporting SIP calls, Boingo worldwide hotspot access and roaming support is integrated into the Wi-Fi phone.

   
6. Multimedia SoC Technology (MST)
 

Multimedia Emulation Platform (MMP-EMU): This is a hardware emulation platform that provides a comprehensive list of video CODEC IP, including H.264 high profile decoder. It is also serves as a flexible SoC design platform to support multi-CODEC solution that can target for customer's specific requirements.

H.264 High Profile Video Decoder SoC Technology: This is aimed to provide FPGA and Silicon proven H.264 High Profile Decoder IP supporting 1080p resolution video applications. Both FPGA and Silicon IPs would be verified on the pre-SoC Multimedia Emulation Platform and Multimedia SoC Test Platform respectively.

AVS X-Profile Video Decoder SoC Technology: This is aimed to provide FPGA and Silicon proven AVS XProfile Decoder IP supporting 1080p resolution video applications. Both FPGA and Silicon IPs would be verified on the pre-SoC Multimedia Emulation Platform and Multimedia SoC Test Platform respectively.

There are a few core technologies which are common across a few of the key technology initiative areas mentioned above.

Voice/Audio/Video CODEC: Support voice, audio and video CODEC on various popular processors, including TI and Pixelwork DSP, Intel xScale, ARM and MIPS for various applications, such as Set Top Box, surveillance, mobile TV, videophone, portable media player, etc.

Voice CODEC: AMR-NB, AMR-WB, G.711+App-1, 2, G.729A/B, DTMF, CPT
Audio CODEC: HE-AAC v1 & v2, AAC-LC, BSAC, MP3
Video CODEC: H.264 BP, MP and HP, MPEG-4 SP and ASP

Image Signal Processing: Built by its experience on TI DM320 multimedia processor, ASTRI can port the ISP experience to support a wide range of work, ranging from driver implementation (e.g., CMOS/CCD sensor registers tuning and raw data retrieval) to user-level function implementation (e.g., AE/AWB/AF algorithms development), and to image quality tuning for a selected sensor to optimize the performance.

Embedded P2P Media Distribution: This technology is developed to combine the power of P2P content distribution with the unique advantages of embedded devices to provide an efficient and secure platform for content distribution. Its application expands beyond one-to-one streaming in order to support much higher volume of users watching the content at the same time through the capability of efficient many-to-many streaming. It currently supports both live streaming and VoD function, and provides the failover protection and network/channel recovery mechanism via the distributed, coordinated and embedded platform.

Cache Facilitated Media Delivery: This technology offers Internet-based CDN capability by enhancing the performance of media delivery over the Internet, resulting in reduced bandwidth consumption and speedy delivery time. Offering high quality of video over IP network is strongly growing and highly demanded. However due to high bandwidth dependency, viewer's experience to enjoy the content is easily affected by the network's traffic condition. Usually high quality of video is delivered via well-engineered and controlled "Intranet-based" CDN. Video over Internet has been considered a killer application for years from both economic and easiness-to-deploy stand point. A major roadblock of this application getting full-blown acceptance is the taxing of the traffic load on the core and access network infra-structure. This cache-based media delivery mechanism with HTML-based delivery technology not only eases the traffic load but also provides flexibility and an open architecture to the 3rd party ICP and VAS service providers. With this architecture, this technology is also easy to adapt/integrate with other delivery technologies, like Peer-to-Peer.

SIP Development Platform: The SIP Development Platform offers a complete solution to build VoIP client applications. It offers two levels of APIs, at the SIP Stack's level and the User Agent's level, for application development on the Linux platform. The typical call features enabled by this platform include Proxy Numeric Call, Direct IP Call, Call Hold, Call Waiting, Call Transfer, and Client-Based Call Forward. The platform is the perfect suite for rapid prototyping and short development cycle of VoIP products.

Wi-Fi/GSM Call Handoff: This module initially allows an on-going Wi-Fi/GSM bi-directional voice session conducted over IP (VoIP) to be transitioned to a circuit-switched-based transport (i.e., Wi-Fi to GSM and roaming back). The technology will be further extended for multi-modal communication devices supporting multiple network interfaces. One of them can communicate with the IP domain and the other can interact with the PSTN domain. The IP domain can be conducted over Wi-Fi, Ethernet, or 3G/IMS whereas the PSTN domain can be conventional cellular (GSM or CDMA), fixed-line analog or ISDN telephony, or DECT-based or proprietary RF wireless telephony.

Real-Time Surveillance (RTS): This field proven platform technology has been used at international airports as an integral part of the real time surveillance system. The heart of this platform is a real time H.264 encoder on a DSP.