ViXS Systems said it will use next week’s Cable Show in Los Angeles to demo a chipset that features 4K HEVC/H.265 10-bit decoding/transcoding and support for the Reference Design Kit (RDK), the pre-integrated software stack for IP and IP/QAM hybrid boxes being managed by Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Liberty Global.
Targeted to next-gen gateways and set-tops, ViXS said its XCode 6400 systems-on-chip supports native 4K/Ultra HD and silicon-based transcoding alongside HEVC, which is designed to be 50% more bandwidth-efficient than MPEG-4/H.264 coding.
Comcast is gearing up to launch a 4K VOD app that will debut later this year on new Samsung 4K TVs and deliver content over the customer’s high-speed Internet connection. Comcast is developing a new line of devices for its X1 platform with HEVC that can decode native 4K signals. Those are expected out later this year.
ViXS’s new SoC is one of its latest RDK-pointing projects. In January, ViXS and Intel announced an RDK partnership that will match Intel’s Puma 6 MG DOCSIS 3.0 gateway chips with ViXS’s XCode 5106 multi-stream HD transcoder. Last year, the vendors announced plans to develop a reference design that integrates the Intel Puma 6 with ViXS’s transcoding and MoCA 2.0 chips.
"ViXS Systems has been instrumental in making UHD 4K a reality in the broadcast industry and with our introduction of a reference platform that combines UHD 4K, HEVC, and RDK, we expect momentum to increase further still," said Sally Daub, President and CEO, ViXS Systems Inc. "RDK is a feature rich framework for pay TV operators that, when combined with ViXS' UHD 4K media processing, becomes a powerful platform for accelerating the deployment of STBs and gateways to address growing consumer demand for the unbelievable viewing experience of Ultra HD,” Sally Daub, president and CEO of ViXS, said in a statement.
Toronto-based ViXS has been making news elsewhere of late. Last week, it targeted Entropic Communications as well as DirecTV and other Entropic customers in a complaint filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission alleging that they are infringing on several asserted patents and engaging in unfair trade practices.
ViXS’s complaint comes after Entropic filed a patent infringement lawsuit in a California district court alleging that ViXS is infringing two of Entropic’s “core home networking patents.” ViXS has filed counterclaims in that case.
