Magnum Semiconductor announces DX8112 Professional MPEG-2 SD/HD Encoder

Second Member of DX1 Family Provides Visibly Superior Solutions for Digital Cable, Satellite and ATSC Broadcasts

Apr 14, 2008

Las Vegas, Nevada, April 14, 2008 - At the National Association of Broadcasters show, Magnum Semiconductor Corporation, a worldwide leader in video compression technology, today introduced the DX8112 MPEG-2 Professional Encoder solution, the second member of the company's sixth-generation DX1 family of video encoder products. The DX8112 provides a scalable platform for full-featured broadcast solutions for digital cable infrastructure, legacy satellite and ATSC digital terrestrial broadcast encoder applications.

"With the DX8112 Magnum has created a best-of-class solution for MPEG-2 encoding," stated Bob Saffari, vice president of marketing for set-top and broadcast products at Magnum. "Using the advanced video pre-processing and multi-pass capabilities of the DX8112, system engineers can achieve greater compression efficiencies, increasing the number of channels they broadcast over existing bandwidth allocations," he said.

The DX1 family of chips is based on the Magnum Domino[X] media processor architecture, a flexible and scalable multi-core design for standard definition (SD) and high definition (HD) encoding. Pre-processing capabilities include motion-compensated temporal filtering (MCTF), while the scalable multi-pass encoding architecture allows algorithmic enhancements to take full advantage of the processing power inherent in the architecture. A typical HD encoding solution based on the DX8112 provides calculating performance for up to one trillion operations per second (1 TeraOPS), a five-fold improvement over previous generations of MPEG-2 encoders.

Michelle Abraham, principal analyst at the market research firm In-Stat, noted: "The MPEG-2 compression standard drives the majority of the digital broadcast market today. About 65% of real-time broadcast encoders are expected to be MPEG-2 in 2008." She continued, adding, "There is a real benefit to the broadcast industry if lower bit-rates can be achieved over the same MPEG-2 infrastructure, while maintaining or even improving the quality of the video."

The DX1 family concept allows system engineers to implement state-of-the-art MPEG-2 solutions for today's infrastructure, and to quickly advance to H.264 for new and emerging opportunities with minimal impact on their overall system.

Magnum offers a complete development package for the DX8112 including the Nova multichip reference board, which uses four DX8112s for a state-of-the-art HD broadcast encode solution, and a standard software package. Source code licensing is available for select customers.

The DX8112 is part of the DX1 encoder product family that also includes the DX8110 H.264 SD/HD encoder. The DX8112 is packaged in a 35x35mm 680-pin BGA package. It is available now for samples and production deliveries.

About Magnum Semiconductor

Magnum Semiconductor is a leading provider of chips, software, and platforms for consumer entertainment systems and the professional broadcast infrastructure. Magnum provides the tools and technologies for creating, delivering and enjoying video throughout the broadcast infrastructure, around the home, and on-the-go. Magnums chips and software are used in professional video encoders, broadcast transcoders, in-home set-top boxes, consumer DVD recorders, hard-disk based home media centers, digital camcorders, and a variety of in-home and portable media-centered devices. Magnum Semiconductor is headquartered in Milpitas, California, with sales and engineering offices in Canada, China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Further information is available at www.magnumsemi.com.