Indeo, H.320 Silicon pursued

Electronic News, July 18, 1994 by Reinhardt Krause

NEW YORK--Intel last week said it is in discussions with several silicon suppliers to port the videoconferencing variant of its Indeo software technology to programmable video codec architectures. In one related development, Integrated Information Technology (IIT) next month plans to disclose development of a video compression processor for H.320-to-Indeo transcoding--a move to make Intel's software codec technology compatible with the videoconferencing standard's compression scheme.

The IIT silicon, sources said, is being developed for Compression Labs Inc. and VTEL--two videoconferencing companies that formed alliances with Intel earlier this year to bridge H.320-based systems to Intel's desktop-based Proshare Personal Conferencing System (PCS). However, Intel is also talking to other providers of video codecs.

Michael Glancy, Intel's PCS director of architecture and core technologies, said Intel is now "concluding some relationships with key silicon suppliers" that would constitute part of a second tier of companies supporting Indeo video in the personal conferencing area. Both CLI and VTEL have early access to the Indeo conferencing algorithms as core members of the original PCS standards group Intel formed earlier this year (EN, Jan. 17).

"One of the ways we're going to proliferate this standard (PCS) is to make it easy for vendors to accept," Mr. Glancy said. "One way to make it easy is deliver it along with silicon they're using for other things. For example, any H.320 vendor in the world with the IIT chipset can in essence get PCS capability, so the product he builds operates in two different modes." Anybody using IIT silicon can be a participant in PCS and that's what we're after and as we go through the year you will see some major announcements by other partners."

Although the core members of the PCS standards group lack silicon suppliers, Mr. Glancy said that will change as a second membership tier is formed. However, he said the number of potential silicon suppliers is limited at this point.

"There are only a few silicon vendors that are out there with either programmable or somewhat fixed type of silicon. There is IIT and C-Cube, and AT&T and one or two others. There's only a small group you really have to involve," he said. Mr. Glancy added that Japan's Matsushita and Europe's British Telecom, through its work with Motorola, also have the codec technology to support both Indeo and H.320.

The video compression component of the H.320 standard, H.261, covers the entire channel capacity of Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN); it is used for videophone and videoconferencing. H.261 is discrete cosine transform (DCT)-based and resembles MPEG to some degree, Intel's Indeo video technology is based on proprietary software algorithms, essentially vector quantization techniques.

Intel's initial PCS specifications, which will be delivered in draft form in the latter part of the summer, address ISDN. The Proshare system requires 64kbps basic rate ISDN (EN, Jan. 31); Intel had hedged on whether its ultimate strategy would be H.320 compatibility but recently the company signalled it is moving in that direction.

"It's not that we're making PCS more compatible toward H.320," Mr. Glancy said. "We're making sure we have performance similar to what H.320 has and in every possible way we're trying to make sure we can interconnect to them. In our products we're putting H.320 so if there is an interconnect we can do it. Since we do it in software, it doesn't cost anything unusual and similarly we're trying to enable key silicon suppliers in the industry to port PCS to their silicon so that people that design products with their silicon can in essence get PCS for free. But we're not making the algorithms more compatible because there is a fundamental difference."

"We're pushing PCS or Indeo, for the personal conferencing workspace, the individual user. At times those people will have to connect into group systems, which is the domain of H.320 and there may be some H.320 applications in the personal conferencing space."

Making the two compression and decompression (codec) technologies--Indeo and H.320--interoperate ostensibly would involve some overhead issues, such as going through a lookup-table as well as where the associative horsepower would come from. While Intel still intends to use its host processor and software technology for accomplishing a H.320/Indeo "connection" on the desktop, IIT's silicon ostensibly would target customers such as CLI and VTEL and possibly add-in board makers.

"It could be an Intel solution or a solution based on an IIT chipset or potentially you should be able to buy solutions based on an AT&T chipset," Mr. Glancy said. "Right now VTEL is using the AT&T chipset; there are some indications maybe they'll use some other silicon. In the future, VTEL may use the IIT chipset. From Intel's viewpoint, we're trying to ensure that all these different silicon solutions all are capable of doing PCS."