Codec Wars 2.0 - This Time, It's Personal
Jeremy Hendy, Vice President - Aspex

The diverging world of networked, video enabled devices should allow us to watch whatever content we want, wherever & whenever we like, and on whatever device we have handy.

But with this brave new world of distributed DVRs, DVD Recorders, Blu-Ray/HD-DVD recorders, Cameras, Games Consoles, iPods, Cellphones, Laptops, Slingboxes & PCs, comes a potential minefield of video compression codecs, with each device having specific requirements on codecs, resolution & bitrates. MPEG-2, H.264, MPEG-4, VC-1, WM9, DivX, Quicktime, Flash 7, Flash 8, Real - it's a jungle out there.

Just when you thought the MPEG-2 vs H.264 vs VC-1 battle was over, our future home gateways will need flexible transcoding engines, allowing them to adapt & securely deliver the content wherever it needs to go.

We look at some typical scenarios for video storage, transmission & consumption within the home, understand the requirements for video transcoding, and take a look at how future silicon technology can help squeeze the functionality of today's head-end encoder into a consumer device.