Integrated Circuits for Video Coders

Abstract

Due the computational requirements of the video standards (H.261 and MPEG), early hardware implementations were multichip designs, where each major component such as the DCT processor and the variable-length coder was a separate chip. For example, in 1992, NEC introduced a three-chip set for MPEG-1 video encoding and decoding. The three ICs were an interframe coder (required only for video encoding), a transform and quantization processor, and a variable-length coder. Operating at 27 MHz, the chip set could process SIF resolution frames at 30 frames/s.