28 August 2008

Samsung Camcorder Platform With ARM11 Core Raises The Bar

Samsung has taken the wraps off a high performance platform for camcorders that it said will raise the bar in terms of video quality, recording times and battery life.

The platform, designed and manufactured using 65-nanometer process technology on an ARM11 core, will also significantly enhance the performance of personal navigation devices (PNDs), portable multimedia players (PMPs) and portable DVD players, the company said. At the same time it also increases compatibility by making it easier for consumers to get their memories from camcorders to multi-media devices such as MP3 players and PMPs supporting H.264 format, without having to transcode the files.

By integrating its seven sub-chips including LCD controller and video encoder into one powerful chip, the power consumption level has also been lowered from 1.1 watts to 0.4 watts, so that Samsung camcorders have almost twice the battery life, the company said.

The platform is the first, according to Samsung, to utilize H.264 CODEC to SD camcorders. Supporting multi-CODEC from MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 to H.264, the platform improves recording times and video quality by more than doubling the high compression ratio.

Samsung’s platform also includes advanced face detection technology which it said optimizes the diaphragm and focus of camcorders as well as a 3-D noise reducton algorithm for smooth video.