CompCore targets C-Cube, IIT codecs

Electronic News, Sept 26, 1994

SUNNYVALE, CALIF.--CompCore Multimedia Inc.'s new software audio/video compression algorithm for Pentium systems is targeted at replacing audio/video codec hardware from the likes of C-Cube and Integrated Information Technology (IIT), according to George Haber, CompCore founder and president. As reported (EN, Antenna, Sept. 19), the Pentiumtargeted product is being shown to selected customers and is a follow-on to the MPEG-1 hardware and hardware-modeling software solution that Cirrus Logic and Zilog recently licensed (EN, July 25 & Aug. 29).

According to Mr. Haber, the not-yet-completed software product will be priced at a couple of dollars each in quantity, sans details, "My dream is to have Microsoft put the software in Chicago (EN, Sept., 19)," he said during a recent interview and demonstration of the new MPEG-1 software. But when asked if CompCore is in discussion with Microsoft, Mr. Haber declined to comment.

On the new software product, Mr. Haber said, "Our new MPEG-1 audio and video decompression software can be a decompression engine that will be used in other people's products such as video games. It will also be good for videoconferencing applications because the software is like an object-oriented approach. Our compression engine is as fast as you can get, and we do our own color space conversion, which will eventually be handled by the hardware--it's not MPEG-specific. We expect a 30 to 40 percent increase in speed, which will make it real-time."

Although there are still a few bugs to be worked out, the product is nearing commercial availability. "The sound is not fully synchronized. We need to work on speed and synchronization," said Sorin Papuc, CompCore's senior software engineer. "I expect it will be available in a month to a month-and-a-half. The video is completely done. We are still working on the audio."

One feature of the new codec software product is that its speed will be high enough to allow computer multitasking, i.e., run video and other tasks. "It still has fast response for word processing and other simple tasks. It's an enabling technology. Then if the user comes up with hardware, that would be the perfect solution. We have MPEG-2 software ready. That is the next step for us."

Mr. Haber has said the company plans to demonstrate an MPEG-2 codec products at the upcoming Fall Comdex '94 conference in Las Vegas, and may unveil an MPEG-2 product later this year. He added that CompCore is near to closing a deal to sell its first MPEG-2 engine license. "Companies like Scientific Atlanta and GI (General Instrument) are asking us 'How fast can you ramp up,' because they sell millions of devices."

CompCore's MPEG hardware solution is based on a novel approach that reduces the number of required logic gates and memory. The size of the CompCore system and video decoder is approximately 10,000 basic gates and it decodes any MPEG-1 compliant system and video bitstream. The technology-in-dependent CompCore decoder can be synthesized in any 0.8-micron application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) technology.