audio/videoZONE Products for the week of November 17, 2003
Texas Instruments Says . . .
TVP5146/150: Digitizers Of Analog, Composite Video
For Next-Gen Applications
TI Announces Two Video Decoders Targeting PVRs, DTVs and Handheld
Consumer Products
Enabling new types of portable and home entertainment devices, Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) introduced two mixed signal video decoders, including the industry's lowest power, smallest size device available on the market. The high performance video decoders convert NTSC, PAL and SECAM video into digital component video in both portable and high volume, as well as high quality and high-performance applications including personal video appliances, digital televisions, handheld consumer electronics and mobile-phone TVs.
Portable and High Volume Applications
As the only decoder solution of its size and power on the market, the TVP5150
enables new products such as video capture devices and portable personal
video recorders. With power consumption at 115 milliwatts (mW) in typical
operation, and the industry's smallest footprint at 32-pin thin quad flatpack
(TQFP), applications for the TVP5150 include PDAs, Notebook/PCs, cell phones,
MPEG4 video players and USB-powered video devices.
"TI's video decoder, the TVP5150, has enabled us to provide consumers with a simple, easy way to archive home movies direct to disk via one simple USB connection to the user's PC," said Mike McCoy, president for ADS Technologies. "The chip's low power consumption was key to our decision to work with TI, as it is the only semiconductor manufacturer offering a video decoder that eliminates the need for an additional USB power supply."
High Quality, High-Performance Applications
Targeting the high quality, high-performance video applications, the TVP5146
is well suited for the high growth DVD recordable (DVD-R) market, and will
also be integrated into PVR/DVR, LCD TV and monitor, digital TV and video
capturing devices. The TVP5146 is very flexible with 10 video inputs and
SCART support. Additionally, the digital video decoder includes a 5-line
adaptive comb filter for best in class Y/C separation and four 10-bit, 30-MSPS
analog-to-digital converters for superior noise performance.
"TI's latest mixed-signal video decoders demonstrate our on-going commitment to provide high-quality, cost-effective solutions for both the traditional consumer electronic markets as well as the exciting new low-power video applications," said Ron Richter, worldwide marketing manager for TI's mixed signal video group. "Both the TVP5150 and TVP5146 surpasses the market requirements for power consumption, video quality and cost to become a major player in products such as mobile-phones, TVs and DVD-recorders. Additionally, we plan to continue our progress as we add a video decoder with '3D comb filter' capabilities to our product line in the first half of 2004 for use in large screen TV applications."
The TVP5150 and TVP5146 are high performance mixed-signal video decoders
that convert base-band analog NTSC, PAL and SECAM video into digital component
video. The TVP5146 supports up to ten component video inputs including S-Video,
YPbPr and RGB. The TVP5150 supports two composite or one S-Video input.
Both products output ITU-R BT.656 and support Macrovision copy protection
as well as advanced VBI functionality. Evaluation boards, software tools
and application notes are now available from TI.
analogZONE Says...
A few years ago TI put together a video group with some real talent and started releasing some very interesting products with a very challenging roadmap. Something happened -- management impatience? atmosphere? -- but whatever it was the group split up and the members have been making money for themselves and other vendors since. These two products stand out immediately because the data sheets, at least, have been vetted by someone who understands video. It is a while since I have seen the terminology associated with component video, in particular, correctly used. And by the way the data sheet is laid out I would hazard that the products are not emanating from Texas.
The TVP5146 is the wizard part of these two. A total of ten video inputs can be configured for combinations of GBR, YPbPr, Y/C or composite NTSC, PAL or SECAM. Those inputs are digitized by four 10-bit 30-Msample/s ADCs with 2 x decimation. After suitable muxing the component signals have gain/offset correction applied and color space conversion before being outputted as either 20-bit YCbCr 4:2:2, or 10-bit YCbCr 4:2:2. The digitized composite and Y/C inputs have the chrominance separated (in the case of composite), decoded and processed. Separation is with a 5-line adaptive filter. All the channels have delays to match signal arrival at the output processor after varying filter delays. The data sheet incorrectly uses the terms luma and chroma (which are RF-modulated signals) instead of the baseband terminology of luminance and chrominance. Copy protection is timed in the muxing process and vertical interval signals (such as teletext and test signals) are sliced off and re-applied in the output formatter. The data sheet does indicate support for various composite transmission standards (like PAL-I), instead of video standards, but I'll give them some leeway so they can address people who are looking for magic words.
As an analog engineer I am very hesitant about praising a digital chrominance decode until I have seen what it looks like on screen, particularly on signals with motion. The first "digital" oscilloscopes digitized the analog inputs way too early and suffered for it, and one wonders whether that will not happen here. The other concern, of course, is the scaling of the input signals to the ADCs but that has been nicely taken care of with a clamp and PGA on the analog input side and with ADC reference voltages generated internally.
Control is on I2C and SCART support is provided. The company claims a patented architecture for weak signal locking, has genlock control and requires a single 14.31818-MHz (50 ppm) reference crystal.
The part has two digital supply rails and two analog rails, one of each is for a nominal 1.8 V and one for 3.3 V with a total power dissipation of typically 335 mW with just composite signals and 730 mW with mixed format inputs. From an analog performance point of view it is difficult to judge results from numbers because so much depends on the picture material when you are decoding from composite, so I am not surprised at numbers like ±1.5% for differential gain and 0.5° for differential phase, and an SNR (all channels at 1 MHz) of 54 dB is par for the course.
The TVP5150 is obviously a cut-down version of the TVP5146, removing a couple of ADCs, simplifying the MUX and eliminating the component processing. It's the version mostly likely to end up in consumer and novel, we-haven't-thought-of-them-yet, products in the next 12 months; the largest market will, however be for the TVP5150 as people become more aware of the benefits (thank you, Consumer Reports!) of using component signals. Although the largest markets for TI are going to be in consumer products the fact that someone made the decision to go for 10-bit processing (whoever you are, smile: you made the right decision!) is going to make the TVP5146 awfully tempting for professional video equipment designers. Some of the control features would need to be tamed down a notch, but the numbers are there. In small quantities for those guys one hopes that TI will be looking for 500-piece pricing of about $60 -- they will find no resistance.
The TVP5150 and TVP5146 are in production with the TVP5150 in a TQFP-32 and the TVP5146 in a thermally-enhanced PFP-80, with the TVP5150 priced at $5.23 and the TVP5146 priced at $10.87, both in 10-k piece lots.