Silicon Optix Announces the Realta Chip -- Bringing Teranex's $60k HQV to the Home - Page 2  

Mark. I asked this question and the answer was yes. I think Algorith hopes to have it's algorithms incorporated in the Silicon Optix chip. The worse we will see is two separate chips but in the same processor.

Now how perfected an early adopter product will be is another question. Algolith does not have the experience learning that Lumagen, Focus, and DVDO (that is the parent of DVDO or whatever) has in making consumer friendly and need fulfilling product. For example, I doubt Algorith will use BNCs or have SDi in.

As to the question about the Gennum chip, no I haven't seen it or have any info on what it actually does.

I hope Algolith will read this forum and understand the need for DVI inputs and outputs, maybe even SDI inputs!

I am a bit confused, the Realta chip will incorporate the "HQV Noise reduction", and "HQV Detail Enhancement", The algolith algorithms provide noise reduction and detail enhancement, so wont that be redundant?

Given true 1080 processing, HD-SDI may also be a relevant input- rather than just SD SDI. Hopefully we will have either HD-SDI PC cards or HD-DVI player mods by then.

I second that. Another A/D and D/A conversion in the chain is most unwelcomed.
Not to be too off-topic, but FYI (this is from their web page):

Applications: upconversion, downconversion, cross conversion, video to graphics conversion
Highest quality format conversion from HDTV inputs
YCbCr to RGB conversion with 4:4:4 interpolation
10-bit motion adaptive HDTV/SDTV de-interlacing
Pixel-by-pixel edge adaptive and vertical motion processing resulting in:
Reduced edge artifacts on shallow horizontal edges
Reduction of vertical motion artifacts
Programmable noise reduction and detail enhancement
24-tap, multi-phase image scaling
Support for arbitrary input and output display modes for custom applications
3:2 detection and compensation for HDTV/SDTV inputs
Bypass mode for progressive scan inputs

Gennum's VXP Processor has the following features:

- 10-bit content adaptive, per-pixel processing of all HDTV and SDTV video signals
- Per-pixel, TruMotionHD(tm) motion and FineEdge(tm) adaptive de-interlacing of 1080i material (this includes SD as well).
- Robust inverse 3:2 and 2:2 processing of all film-based inputs for both HD and SDTV.
- The VXP FidelityEngine(tm) provides content adaptive noise reduction and detail enhancement
- Picture level gain and offset control with 32-region local adjustment capability
- 10-bit fully-programmable gamma correction.
- Patented region-based processing to allow for identical processing on both channels.
- Picture-by-Picture, Picture-in-Picture and Picture-on-Picture with 256 levels of alpha blending between the video channels and the graphics layers.
- Fully programmable image sizes up to 2K by 2K raster sizes.
- Fully programmable scaling for linear and non-linear (panoramic) resizing.
- Chroma upsampling error (CUE) compensation.
- Tearless frame rate conversion on both channels
- High precision 4:4:4 internal processing
- YCbCr to RGB conversion with 4:4:4 interpolation
- Fully integrated 2K by 2K 24-bit sprite-based OSD for rich menus and effects.
- Flexible input multiplexer supporting up to four PCLK signals
- 60-bit input bus for support of 24 and 30 bit RGB graphics along with 30/24/20/16/10/8-bit YCbCr video signals.
- Dual pixel input bandwidth up to 250MP/s
- Highly configurable internal architecture using Gennum's VIPER(tm) application builder software.

- This is just a glimpse in to what the VXP processor can do. Just wait and see what our customers are doing with VXP technology and you'll be amazed!

As they say, seeing is believing!

Quick question for Gennum: Were you at CEDIA and will you be at CES? Seeing IS believing, and we'd like to see your chip and the Realta chip!

This makes me very happy, all of this. Realta, the VXP chip, all the new boxes coming out. The consumer is going to benefit greatly, whether these chips and algorithms are in separate boxes or OEM's into displays.

Not to mention that Sony plans to bring blu-ray HD-DVD to market in 2005 (I am not picking a horse in that race, just observing), new and better display technologies and price pressures ...

On the whole, I think we will have a lot to get excited about in 2005 on this forum!!!

And a special thanks to all the manufacturers who participate here. It's been said before, but you guys make this forum (all the AVS forums) a very special place. You help keep us AVS'ers dialed into all the latest industry news and developments, and for us hobbyists, there's nothing better!

Cheers

Sort of.

Their chip was handling the deinterlacing and scaling duties in Marantz's s4 single chip dlp projector.

Oh yeah and it looked pretty good too on a 1080i HD feed.

Hi Joel,

Yes we were at CEDIA... booth 1139) Marantz also showed their new 12S4 projector where they were taking 1080i material, converting it to 1080p60 using our VXP technology and then down-scaling it to 720p. My opinion is biased but I believe that they had one of the best looking projector at the show (in terms of picture quality), even when comparing with some of the new 1080p60 projectors from Fujitsu and Sanyo.

As for CES, a number of our customers (including Marantz) will be exhibiting VXP technology in their products so you'll definately get a great feel for VXP quality.

I'm sure that the Realta chip is going to be a great solution for some but customers will need to make the cost, quality and time to market trade-off.

I agree with your comment, the customer is only going to benefit from having a variety of solutions to choose from.

I hope that I've answered your questions.

I would agree with that statement. I'd put it up there with the Samsung and Qualia demo.

Wish I had stopped by your booth. Too many darn manufacturers to visit this year.

Thanks much!!!

Cheers

LJG,

I'm not sure if these two algorithms are competing against the same artifacts. Algolith's strength has been MPEG artifact scrubbing, which I believe would complement the deinterlacer and scaler on the Realta perfectly.

Can anyone spell "my dream scaler"?

Zactly. Of course the Allgolith guys won't make it my dream machine. These are the same guys that use RCA's instead of BNCs on their mosquito scrubbing machine. Also I doubt they will incorporate SDI or HDSDI. Of course, with a modern plasma or bulb projector you do not need BNCs out or SDI in, just plug your digital wires up. Seriously I can't wait to buy this baby. I'll make a 5 BNC plate out and somewhere, someplace an SDI in aftermarket will show up. These guys like the Silicon Optix guys are great programmers. Algolith doesn't impress me as being savy marketers or ones who willl listen to the demands of us video nerds. Not like those Lumagen guys listen. Maybe the Algolith functions will be incorporated into the Optix chip. And maybe the Lumagen folks will use it in one of their machines. Now that would be my dream machine.

mark,

Don't be so pessimistic...

Ofer. I had a long talk with them at the Silicon Optix party. I liked the guys who I spoke with. They were engineers I think. From what I gathered, they want to sell chips or have their programming incorporated in someone's chip. I think they will be the first to market with the Optix/Algolith combo but do not look for a highly refined processor. The lack of refinement and the lack of the features that many of us would want is the price we will have to pay in order to get it sooner from the first adopter than later from a small refiner.

We all don't want this forum to fall into a "he says, she says" battle, so this will just address technical facts.

HQV Noise Reduction: These software algorithms will perform 3D, 2D, MPEG and WM9 Mosquito/Block artifact noise reduction and have been tested for 100K hours via Teranex's customer base. Most companies will have some sort of noise reduction, the 2310 FJ chip does as well, but the issue is does it add more artifacts than it removes?

HQV NR has been and is continually tested via the post production and broadcast markets; Turner uses it on 25 networks, to insure that the Image Quality is solid and will work over many different types of content. Remember, HQV NR is a software algorithm running on our processor, so we can write a totally new version of Noise Reduction or any other feature when the content or format changes, say like HD DVD or BlueRay. Full Programmability is the real difference that Silicon Optix and Teranex are bringing to this market to ensure that users' products are future-proofed; no Fixed-Function chip can offer this without the end user having to buy another new product or the OEM going through another long design cycle.

HQV MDDF: Silicon Optix has software version of this feature running on our video processor core as well as hardware versions that run on the other ports so that every input in PIP and PAP mode has the highest quality processing.

HQV Cadence Processing: In our press release we detailed that this feature will support the most film modes in the industry. So here they are again:

3:2, 3:3 and 2:2, that's easy.
Vari-speeds like 3:2:3:2:2 and 2:2:2:4 are for content that is broadcast and sped-up/slowed-down (to add commercials, etc). You get half resolution images if your processor does not support this mode.

5:5, 6:4, 8:7 for animation like Disney movies and Anime. Again, you get half resolution images if your processor does not support these modes.

All of these modes plus PAL, NTSC, and HD video are detected automatically, with no user intervention, using the cadence of the pixel data and they have all been tested by the post production and broadcast markets before they are delivered to end-users. Also these modes run completely in software on our fully programmable processor so Silicon Optix can update them when movie, animation, and TV production techniques change.

Dual Channel Processing: This means that the Realta can process 2 channels of HD or SD without dropping any fields of data at the same time with same level of HQV processing for both channels. Today all available image processors drop to single-field processing on both channels, or just the second channel, to save bandwidth... so the viewer ends up with half resolution images.

What else is integrated: Though we didn't make a big deal out of it, the Realta also has a 250 MIP full floating point RISC host CPU that runs the entire system. This CPU along with some acceleration logic also runs our fully animated On Screen Display. Other applications that the CPU will perform include Jpeg and Jpeg2000 compression and decompression for digital camera data handling as well as a full suite of Photoshop features. Again this CPU is Fully Programmable just like our video processor to do things like Red-Eye reduction and contrast management.

eWARP Scaling and Geometric correction: Versions of the Realta can perform full 90 degree horizontal keystone and 60 degree vertical keystone correction simultaneously without degrading image fidelity. No other chip or group of chips on the market can do this!

All of these features use a single memory controller resulting in a highly cost effective solution for OEMs to integrate. Check out the Algolith DragonFly product to see for your self!

As far as pricing goes, Silicon does not publish chip pricing but I can tell you that system products will be available between $1500 and $30k using the Realta with HQV Technologies.

Can a scaler based on this chip be expected to bring tangible benefits to plasma display's PQ, or is it more like a PJ deal?

Direct-view, front projectors, RPTVS: all will benefit!

Remember that the Realta is fully programmable, so there's no reason why the chip couldn't be 'optimized' for plasmas with algorithms that deal with plasma-specific problems.....

OK Ofer. Here I come.

Plasmas have more problems than any super computer including any super computer on a chip can possibly solve! :)

While Realta's feature-set is impressive, we all know that bulleted features tell only ¼ of the story; real performance quality is what everyone is looking for.

This is why Silicon Optix demoed the Realta with HQV Technology on screens ranging from 30-feet to 60-inchs, not 24-inch LCDs. When a poorly processed signal is optically blown-up to home theater screen sizes even the smallest of artifact stands out.

We also demoed our technology side-by-side versus Sony, Faroudja, Samsung DINe, and NEC to educate people how state-of-the-art processing can turn an ok display into an immersive experience.

Mark,

I agree Plasma is challenging, but we did show some really noisy content at Cedia that aggravate the Plasma color generation circuity. To fix this issue we cleaned each frame of video in real-time thus giving the NEC Plasma module a clean signal that resulted in a dramatic difference. We call this HQV 4D Noise Reduction tunned for Plasmas, in fact it's tuned differently for different types of Plasmas. This technique is used for other display technologies as well.

If your going to CES I would happy to demo this to you.

Dennis

Of course Mark is going to CES...come on...who do you think he is! :)

Anything that truly improves plasma quality I'm all for it. The form factor can't be beat but the PQ has to continue to improve to keep up with everything else. In your NEC demo are you feeding the plasma unit via DVI/HDMI at the panel's native res after processing?

Brent Huskins
Media Design

I was at the party and I saw the demos. I have made at least three plasma manufacturers very happy with the number of plasma sales my store has made. Plasmas, which I firmly believe will be a short lived display technology unlike the long lived CRT, have continued to get better and better. However other flat panel display technologies, lighter and cheaper to produce, will displace plasmas. PQ to the masses has nothing to do with it. To us however, it is almost everything. To me, it is everything. Nevertheless I could now live with a plasma especially if it incorporated the Silicon Optix chip.

Please remember that IMNSHO the purpose of the Silicon Optix party was to generate excitement, the end result of which is to have the BIG manufacturers using the chip.

Ofer and I have a little history :) about some of my plasma quality comments and the marketing of this technology in the early days when plasmas truly sucked.

Whatever. I can hardly wait to get a quality stand alone Silicon Optix/Algolith based video processor to use in my 9 inch CRT FP based HT. The party, my eyes, and the Silicon Optix and Algolith engineers sold me. I am buying and I am going to be selling. However, stand alone processors are a minuscule portion of the market. I am sure Silicon Optix would trade say one big plasma manufacturer using its chip for all the sales it will ever make to the stand alone processor boys.

During my discussions with Algolith, I mentioned the desire for an SDI input. They seemed receptive to the idea, and indicated that others had requested it. They said that if enough people requested it, they would consider adding at. They said the design is not yet finalized as to what inputs the unit will have.

The people from Silicon Optix told me that their board includes SDI and HD-SDI. In fact, they told me that an HD-SDI signal was being used in one of the demo pictures.
Steve

Maybe they should be talking to Canon-Toshiba about putting the chip into the upcoming SED panels.

50", 8500:1 contrast, 1080p full rez, fast response times, Realta chip - an impossible dream????

Mark,

I think we've already agreed to disagree on Plasmas, so I guess you'll keep selling 'em like hot cakes, and I'll continue to use 'em...

dcrespo,

I've enjoyed your comments on non-standard cadence settings. Are you seeing this type of cadence settings often in broadcast sources? Have you seen similar things in PAL environments (e.g., 3:2 puldown material reprocessed for PAL without proper cadence downconversion?)?

I'd be interested in hearing specifics on two points, though:
1. Here in PAL land we are cursed with 2:2 pulldown. Sadly, most deinterlacers on the market do a poor job of properly entering and leaving 2:2 locks (in my view, Faroudja's chips are the worst performers in this regard).

Any comments that are specific about 2:2 pulldown performance?

2. Reading between the lines (it was specifically stated for the Terranex 1U-3U units) - I understand that you are using a motion compensated deinterlacing algorithm for video mode. Having seen a demo (a long time ago), I was blown away by terranex's capability to process video mode and make it look amazingly detailed.

My questions:
a. Are you using motion compensated deinterlacing in Realta?
b. Is this of any use during film mode deinterlacing (i.e., are you also tracking pixel motion in film mode and trying to enhance film mode as well)?
c. Any future plans to do subpixel extrapolation ("super-resolution")?

3. Regarding MPEG artifact removal. From you're saying, it's clear that you basically have a super-strong video processor chip and that your customers can basically pick & choose those algorithms that interest them or re-implement their own stuff as needed.

So, Algolith can basically turn off HQV in favor of their MPEG artifact removal algorithm (or let the user select which algorithm they prefer) and have it run on the Realta chip. Is that correct?

5. Is the main market for the Realta intended for high end displays, STBs and processors, or do you foresee other applications or markets that the Realta would be perfect for?

Great questions Ofer:

dcrespo:

How do you see the Realta chip competing with the Teranex stand alone, if in fact it has all the features of the $60K model,will the Teranex price be reduced?

Lon

From the displays at the party, the chip apparently replaces the stand alone. At least that was what the display implied. A historical display of Teranex products, i.e., boxes decreasing in size each labeled with a year, and finally the last box replaced with a chip.

Mark:

So Teranex will no longer be manufacturing stand alone video processors, unlike Faroudja whose chip was sold almost exclusively for DVD players and really limited its appearence in competing video processor boxes.

LOn

LJG,

no such announcement was made - so no one knows what they'll do with their video processor boxes.