Reference design from Conexant to feed analog video to computers via USB

Conexant Systems has made available a new video "frame grabber" reference design allowing users to capture and transfer older-technology analog video files from camcorders and VCRs to personal computers via an USB bus interface.

This reference design is based on the Conexant's CX23102 audio/video (AV) decoder and CX23417 A/V encoder ICs. This design features on-board, real-time MPEG-2
Compression to free up the PC processor for other tasks. This new solution is already shipping to consumer video electronics manufacturers in China.

"With our highly integrated hardware and software reference design, manufacturers can quickly deliver cost-effective products that allow consumers to easily digitize and preserve content initially recorded on older-technology audio and video tapes, which degrade over time," said René Hartner, vice president of marketing for Conexant. "In addition, integrated support for worldwide audio and video broadcast standards eliminates the need to re-engineer products for various geographies, which reduces product-development costs."

The CX23102 include 10-bit video analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), a full 10-bit video data path, a multi-tap horizontal and vertical scaler, and hue, brightness, saturation, and contrast controls. CX23102 saves the board from additional components such as broadcast decoding and processing chips, and external sound demodulation chips. The CX23417 incorporates video-enhancing built-in noise filters to dynamically improve images in the pre-processing stage, an increased motion search range, the de-coupling of motion estimation from encoding, and an adaptive quantization scheme.

The reference design supports wide range of analog inputs including composite video, S-Video, and component video and meets USB 2.0 low-power consumption requirements.

For further dig go to www.conexant.com