Barco Silex has announced an upgraded version of its VC-2 HQ codec for broadcast applications.
Barco Silex, a provider of video compression technology and OEM solutions in the broadcast and pro A/V market, has announced an upgraded version of its VC-2 HQ codec for broadcast applications.
The VC-2 HQ codec is reportedly a codec for professional applications. Its primary use, as per the official release, is the light compression of high pixel rate video (4K, 8K) content to lower bandwidth in order to ease the real-time transport over networked IP infrastructure. The VC-2 HQ compression is reportedly visually lossless, and does not add any noticeable latency to the system which is important for applications such as broadcast contribution.
The new implementation of the VC-2 standard is reportedly compliant with the latest version of the SMPTE standard. The latest revision (SMPTE ST 2042-1:2017), released in June 2017, introduced the option of using asymmetrical wavelet transform for the VC-2 processing, instead of the usual symmetrical wavelet. Asymmetrical wavelets reportedly allow a better trade-off between the complexity of the codec and its efficiency. The new standard has also been updated to support latest and future video formats, as per an official release.
In order to provide customers with a lightweight codec for ASIC and FPGA, according to a company spokesperson, Barco decided to upgrade the VC-2 HQ IP cores to support the asymmetrical wavelet filtering according to the standard. The implementation uses the LeGall filter with 5 horizontal levels and 1 vertical level, reportedly guaranteeing a compression without artefacts with very low FPGA/ASIC area.
In the broadcast industry, it is important to develop systems around open standards in order to reach interoperability between the different vendors. The new version of the VC-2 standard reportedly enables manufacturers of video over IP equipments to benefit from the latest coding techniques.