Conexant tips MPEG coder for set-tops

摘要

San Mateo, Calif. — A year ago, set-top box architectures were so simple. For a given network, audio and video signals came out of a baseband chip in a fixed format, usually some dialect of MPEG-2. The designs implemented a simple MPEG decoder—no need for high fidelity or advanced error recovery features—and passed the digital audio and video on to the data converters. End of task. But in the race to turn commodity set-top boxes and PCs into Media Gateways and Digital Entertainment Centers (capital letters denoting additional margins for the OEM), things have become messy. One of the biggest problems is local storage. Viewers, so the theory goes, want to raise their arms up from the couch long enough to pause, review or even apply special effects to broadcast signals. They may even want to time-shift content altogether.