Aspex's Q family of multi-channel High-Definition (HD) video transcoding chips deliver flexible, studio-quality transcoding at consumer price points, supporting advanced codecs like H.264 and VC-1 at resolutions up to 1080p60.

Aspex's Q chips have been developed to address the fast-growing requirement for media sharing between different devices. Q chips are suitable for integration into a wide range of consumer equipment, such as Advanced Set-Top-Boxes, Home Gateways, Digital Media Adapters, DVRs, HD-DVD/Blu-Ray recorders, HD Camcorders and high-end TVs, with applications including:

• In-home video networking & distribution
• Transcoding & "Sideloading" content for portable & mobile devices
• "Slinging" content for remote access over the internet
• Recording to DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-Ray disk
• "Live Pause" functionality, recording to integrated or removable flash/HDD
• Faster-than-realtime SD transcoding and ripping
• "Long Play" bitrate reduction for PVRs and Blu-Ray/HD-DVD
• HD videoconferencing & video chat
• Accelerated HD video editing and burning on PCs and laptops
• Wireless HDMI links

Supporting all the latest video compression standards, including H.264, VC-1, and the new Scalable Video Codec (SVC), Q combines the time-to-market and flexibility benefits of a futureproof, software-upgradable architecture, with the performance needed for high quality video compression and transcoding of multiple channels at full HDTV resolutions, including 720p, 1080i and 1080p.

Q also integrates a multi-channel surround sound audio core, an ARM9 system CPU, full support for content protection and encryption using a variety of Digital Rights Management middleware, and a wide variety of interfaces including HDMI, USB, Ethernet & PCI Express.

Building on more than 400 man-years of research & development, and the algorithmic know-how gained from Aspex's successful Accelera family of professional HD video compression products, Q incorporates Aspex's 8th generation ASProCore processing architecture, which combines the flexibility of software with the performance and low power of dedicated hardware solutions.