Ambarella, Inc., a leader in low-power, high-definition video compression and image processing semiconductors, today announced that over 10,000 channels of H.264 real-time broadcast encoders worldwide are now powered by its AmbaCast™ processor. This achievement confirms Ambarella’s position as the leading technology provider for broadcast quality video processing. The products shipped are based on the Ambarella AmbaCast™ platform, which enables the design of broadcast encoders with superior picture quality, high density and very low power consumption.

“As a pioneer in video compression, Ambarella is pleased to have contributed to the rapid deployment of H.264 AVC technology in the broadcast infrastructure,” stated Dr. Didier LeGall, executive vice-president of Ambarella.“ By choosing the AmbaCast™ scalable architecture, companies achieve great flexibility from standard definition (SD) to 1080p60 full high-definition while maintaining a superior picture quality.”

“Ambarella has made great strides in a short period of time,” said Michelle Abraham, principal analyst at In-Stat. “This milestone shows how confident encoder suppliers are with the Ambarella technology.”

AmbaCast™ a family of high-performance products

The Ambarella AmbaCast™ processors can support both standard definition and high-definition with high- definition being 720p 60 (favored by sport programmers), 1080i 60, and the emerging 1080p 60. The AmbaCast™ platform accepts uncompressed video at rates exceeding 3Gbits per second and produces compliant H.264 main and high-profile streams at bit rates as low as 1.2 Mbps for 480i, 4 Mbps for 720p 60 and 1080i 60, and as low as 6Mbps for 1080p60.

H.264 AVC is becoming the dominant broadcast format

Because of it offers 2.5 to 3 times greater compression efficiency than MPEG-2,  H.264 is already the dominant format in Direct Broadcast Satellite and IPTV(television programming delivered to the home using phone lines and the internet protocol). Cable and terrestrial deployment are also rapidly adopting the new technology. H.264 AVC (also called MPEG-4 AVC) is a global standard that is deployed or is being deployed in North America, Europe, Japan and other countries.

News release URL: www.ambarella.com/news-events/