On2 Technologies (News - Alert), a provider of video compression solutions, has announced plans to launch the Hantro (News - Alert) 9190, its new hardware video decoder design.

 

Hantro’s line of decoders have already been deployed in millions of chips worldwide, and the 9190 belongs to the tenth generation of these decoders, the company said.

 

The new decoder design is compatible with various video formats including On2 VP6 for Adobe Flash Player and Sun JavaFX, DivX 3, 4, 5, 6, H.264, H.263, Sorenson Spark, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, VC-1/WMV9 and RealVideo 8, 9 & 10. The 9190 design also supports JPEG still images up to 66 megapixels, and the video playback up to full HD resolution at 1080p lines, at 60 frames per second.

 

The design is able to support On2 VP6 video format in both VP6-E and VP6-S profiles. The format has been developed by On2, and has been included in the Adobe Flash and Sun JavaFX application platforms. Various popular sites including Hulu (News - Alert), NYTimes.com, CNN, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Toudou.com, Eurosport, CCTV.com etc. have adopted the VP6 video format,

 

The new codec designs offered by On2 enable integration of high-performance video capability in chipsets, which proves to be a minimum risk solution for semiconductor manufacturers. Deploying these designs, the chip makers are able to integrate a hardware video codec instead of software, so that they can extend the video playback time of battery operated devices. The designs also enable them to achieve full HD playback performance, even with the lowest-end device CPUs.

 

The Hantro 9190 is also a CPU economical solution for the chip makers, as it needs less than 100MHz clock frequency to decode 1080p video at 30 fps, which otherwise can’t be easily achieved through only a software solution. It consumes less than 50 milliwatts for HD video decoding, and less than 10 milliwatts when decoding standard definition or ‘SD’ video, and is up to 11 times more power efficient solution than other commercially available software solutions for digital signal processors or ‘DSPs’.

 

Also, the new Hantro 9190 offers the customers with complete freedom for configuring it, as its multi-format architecture enables semiconductor manufacturers to support all of today’s popular video codecs in a single chip design.

 

Earlier this year, On2 Technologies provided its VP7 codec to 21ViaNet, a carrier-neutral IDC service provider in China with its businesses including internet data center service, content delivery network, enterprise data center service and data center-based industry solutions, for its new VOD services.