C2 Microsystems has brought out a high definition media for broadband-connected set-top box and digital TV applications.
"It's the first full HD media processor which decodes all the standard digital broadcast formats, and all the Internet delivery codecs up to 720p", C2's Neil Bullock told EW, "and it can adapt to new media codecs."
Called the CC1200 
family, the processors are designed for media applications that require full HD video decoding and presentation with high performance applications processing.
"We're designed into three of the top six TVs", said Bullock, "currently 90% of our sales are in Asia, but we are looking to sell more in Europe. Europe is more open to more product diversity - which we can assist."
Some members of the CC1200 family are capable of video encoding and transcoding 
for features such as video messaging and place shifting.
The processors use formats such as HTML / JavaScript, Java, Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight.
The processors have a dual-core SMP architecture capable of a CoreMark greater than 1000 and the equivalent of 1000 DMIPS at 350MHz. The devices also accelerate DirectFB and OpenVG in hardware, delivering significant performance improvements in graphics benchmarks.
The processors decode H.264, VC-1 /WMV-9, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 video standards at Full HD resolution, and support the decoding of the widest range of internet video content in formats such as AVS, RMVB, On2 VP6, and H.263 at up to 720p resolution. SD resolution encoding in a variety of formats is supported on certain devices.
All of the devices are SOCs, integrating the standard interfaces required for connected STB and connected digital TV applications.
The processors integrate the Jazz 2 media processor, a hybrid applications / content processing architecture which blends a dual core RISC processor with a SIMD vector unit for greatest flexibility in video format support and with Codec Acceleration Processors for highest performance on the most demanding video content.
This is coupled with a high performance 175 Mpixels/s 2D graphics processor, a high quality image processing engine incorporating advanced de-interlacing and scaling algorithms and a security processor for secure key management and acceleration of cryptographic operations.
All processing elements have access to DRAM memory through a 6.4GB/s DDR-2 memory controller that is specifically designed to manage the differing bandwidth and latency requirements of media and applications processing.
System interfaces include: digital audio and video input and output, HDMI and analogue component / S-Video / Composite output, 10/100/1000Mb interface to Ethernet PHY, SATA-II HDD / ODD storage interface, NAND Flash storage interface, dual USB interface with OTG capability, SD / MMC card interface, dual digital broadcast transport stream input with smart card support, PCIe and PCMCIA expansion interfaces and a variety of low-speed serial interfaces.
The hardware resources are coupled with a Linux-based software development kit that is optimized for internet-connected consumer electronics applications that require support for multiple concurrent media and networking operations. C2's Media Framework manages the hard real time audio and video processing functions for multiple streams within an embedded system footprint. The software development kit uses proven open-source components such as Qt and WebKit to enable the development of applications.
The media processor and associated software architecture are designed to allow scaling to address the diverse requirements of emerging applications.
The first two devices of the CC1200 family, the CC1202 and CC1203 are intended for high performance decoder-only and encoder / decoder applications respectively.
Device samples, hardware development platforms and software development kits are available immediately to qualified customers. Products based on CC1200 family devices are expected to be available to consumers in Q1 2010.