Lower cost and more power efficient video and images

Showlei Associates has announced its CamCoder video compression device that will dramatically lower the cost, power consumption and size for the compression of high-definition streaming images.

Continuing improvements in lowering the cost and efficiency of imaging impacts public issues like persistent and ubitquitous surveillance.

This IC can be used in a variety of applications and especially addresses the need for high-resolution surveillance image recording. The device is able to simultaneously encode two separate streaming images — full size and quarter size — with robust compression and high quality. The IC also contains internal logic for user-programmable motion detection and watermark insertion, as well as on-board memory.

The CamCoder interfaces directly with a variety of CMOS imagers — from QVGA to very-high, eight-megapixel resolution, and above.

According to John Music, president, Showlei is known for proprietary time-domain video codecs that lower chip transistor count by more than 10:1 — compared with other MPEG designs

Kodak will have an image sensor that is four times more sensitive to light in commercial cameras in 2008

Kodak’s new proprietary technology adds panchromatic, or “clear” pixels to the red, green, and blue elements that form the image sensor array. Since these pixels are sensitive to all wavelengths of visible light, they collect a significantly higher proportion of the light striking the sensor. By matching these pixel arrangements with advanced software algorithms from Kodak that are optimized for these new patterns, users can realize an increase in photographic speed, directly improving performance when taking pictures under low light. Kodak’s new technology also enables faster shutter speeds (to reduce motion blur when imaging moving subjects), as well as the design of smaller pixels (leading to higher resolutions in a given optical format) while retaining performance.