Industry Breakthrough From Micronas Integrates Hard-Disk Recording Into Mass-Market IDTVs (0320)
New Software Package Paves Way to High-Performance, Cost-Effective Hard-Disk Recording and Time-Shift Features in Both IDTV and Set-Top Boxes
Freiburg/Germany, August 20, 2003 - Micronas today announced a new software package enabling hard-disk recording in IDTVs (integrated digital TVs) and STBs (set-top boxes). Combining a hard-disk file system and a recording engine based on Micronas´ MDE 9500 single-chip DVB decoder platform, the new software makes it possible to provide convenient hard-disk recording and time-shift features in an advanced single-CPU IDTV for the first time. The software is available now for evaluation and licensing to qualified OEMs and OEDs.
The Micronas solution leverages the company's strong background in TV applications and the potential of its MDE 9500 product family, which was designed to support full-featured IDTV and STB applications, to get rid of virtually all hardware redundancy. This enables CE manufacturers to offer their products to consumers at prices that are more likely to generate significant sales than today's rather high-end showcases.
"With this new software and hardware combination, Micronas has mastered the industry challenge of integrating a resource-demanding file system and recording engine into the existing IDTV software environment, which adds a level of real-time complexity when compared to STBs," said Peter Rost, marketing director digital TV at Micronas. "Hard-disk recording, especially when combined with a reliable electronic program guide, is much more convenient than the traditional VCR video tape. Once you've tried hard-disk recording, you will never want to miss this feature again."
The main application for hard-disk drive recording is the storage of a short-term archive of favorite programs. To play back the program, the user only needs to push a button on the remote control - much more convenient than the troublesome search for the beginning of a recorded program on a video tape. In the time-shift mode, the running program is recorded and played back with a time delay in parallel. For example, if the door bell rings, the user only has to push the "Pause" button to activate recording. When returning to the living room, the user simply pushes the "Play" button to follow the movie without any discontinuance.
Historically, stable software for hard-disk recording has only been available for STBs due to the difficulty of integrating the hard-disk recording software into the overall software of IDTVs. So far, IDTVs that support hard-disk recording, have been based on costly multi-CPU designs, generating huge initial R&D effort and penalizing the product's Bill-of-material severely.
The greatest technical problem in this real-time-critical application is the loss-less capturing of real-time data, such as teletext pages, subtitle lines or interactive service data, while the hard disk is working in parallel. Consumers expect to keep all TV features when hard-disk recording is running in parallel. Any deterioration of the image quality in TV sets is not tolerable in the high-end TV market.
The MDE 9500 platform ICs are the industry's first single-chip TV decoders for cost-effective IDTV sets. All functions required to decode digital and analog programs, as well as associated mainstream interactive services, are integrated. This high degree of integration allows TV manufacturers to develop next-generation digital TVs also capable of receiving analog programs without having to use separate video decoder and teletext processor ICs. The MDE 9500, therefore, eases the transition into the age of purely digital TV.
Micronas already provides a fully integrated software package for hybrid analog-digital IDTVs - from driver level via field proven middleware up to applications such as graphical user interface, unified analog/digital channel lists and various data service decoders.