ST releases new technology connecting digital homes

STMicroelectronics has introduced the industry’s first transcoding engine to enable a home gateway to distribute any type of content to any type of connected device in the home. The new transcoding engine is set to become an integral part of all of ST’s Home Gateway solutions.
By leveraging the Faroudja transcoding technology, Home Gateway devices enable IP-connected clients to display content with unprecedented quality. The technology is supported in ST chipsets by the new ST-developed software based on the open GStreamer standard. This solution allows many incoming data formats to be converted in real time to H.264, allowing users to enjoy TV, browsing, gaming and other external services on any client device anywhere in the home, including tablets, mobile devices, laptops and connected TVs.

Andrew Cofler, System Architecture Director, Unified Platform Division, STMicroelectronics said, ST’s image-transcoding technology makes homes ultimately connected, allowing users to access any content in any format on any device from tablets to TVs. With its advanced transcode engine that delivers best-in-class security, low power consumption and industry-leading performance, ST is taking the emerging home-server and home-gateway application segment to the next level.

The new technology is already implemented in the popular STiH416 (‘Orly’) device and fully supported in the recently introduced STiH407/STiH410/STiH412 (‘Monaco’) devices, with up to four channels of transcoding enabled through GStreamer interfaces on the ARM Cortex MPCore application processor. The transcoding technology increases the number of channels as well as adds support for additional video formats such as HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding).