Engineering Investigations
USB 3.0 makes itself right at home
By Eric Huang, Synopsys
1/31/2013 1:49 PM EST
Faster transfer rates
TV chips in 2011 had USB 2.0 hosts fully integrated into the TV’s SoC. This allowed TV makers to incorporate a single standard chip. Low-end TVs used the same chip, but did not provide the USB 2.0 ports on the outside of the TV. For the high-end TVs with USB ports, consumers could buy a USB video camera and mount it on their TV. Usually, the video camera was a specific model, sold only by the TV manufacturer. The same USB ports could be used to connect the TV to the internet with a WiFi USB dongle, or connect a digital camera or flash memory to view pictures or video. The Hisense TV allowed use of four applications at once.
More, faster data transfer requires USB 3.0
Fast forward to today. All major TV makers offer a built-in video camera for video conferencing. These systems use USB internally to connect the TV chip and the camera. For example, Figure 2 below taken at CES 2013, you can see this Panasonic TV has three external USB ports.
Figure 2: Panasonic TV with three USB Ports as seen at CES 2013
It is likely there is a 4th port used internally for a USB to WiFi connection. In at least one case, Samsung’s Smart Interaction feature uses the camera for gesture control and face recognition, and its microphone for voice control.
While USB 2.0 throughput is sufficient for video conferencing, the higher demands of gesture control require USB 3.0. Why? Gesture control improves with higher resolution cameras, and at least two cameras. If you’ve seen a teardown of the Microsoft Kinect USB Video Camera, which is used for gesture control in video gaming, you’ll see that it includes at least two imaging sensors. One camera captures a full-color image of the action and displays the user on the screen. The second camera, which is infrared, coordinates with data from the video camera to map out the human body. The two data streams together make a 3D model of the body for fairly accurate mapping and fine gesture control.
However, gamers will tell you that this interface isn’t sensitive enough. Improved sensor control requires more data from multiple angles. With more video data delivered at 1080p, 30 frames per second would need 1.7 Gigabits throughput per second. This is at least five times faster than the effective throughput of USB 2.0
Trying to move this much video data through a USB 2.0 connection requires compression next to the image sensor, transmission over USB 2.0, and then decompression when it reaches the central processor. Compressing and decompressing the video produces unwanted delays due to the additional CPU cycles. For gamers, it means slower motion sensing and more lag—basically, slow response times between the gamer’s motion and the TV/game’s response.
Connections outside the TV
Moving forward, at least two USB 3.0 ports will be available on the outside of TVs, such as those found on the Panasonic Viera. Using these ports, consumers can connect a USB 3.0 hard drive to the TV for direct recording. Attaching USB 3.0 drives will allow recording of up to four high-definition (HD) channels at once. A 3 terabyte (TB) USB 3.0 hard drive will hold 300 hours and a 6 TB USB 3.0 hard drive can hold 600 hours of HD TV shows. The second port can be used for connecting to a USB 3.0 video camera for the transfer and display of HD or 4K videos.
USB 2.0 can’t support recording multiple channels of HD, uncompressed, encrypted content, so USB 3.0 is required. While TVs can currently record four channels, future TVs will easily record more. Recording multiple HD channels requires high throughput. Compressed video might be handled with slower speeds, but minimizing compression allows for faster display on the screen. Faster USB 3.0 throughput reduces lag and provides more reliable delivery of content to display and to storage. Faster delivery to storage also reduces the RAM required. If the TV has to wait to write data into storage (or hold data for display when reading from storage) then more RAM is required for buffering the video data. Reducing RAM has a direct impact on reducing the cost of a TV since RAM is not designed by the TV manufacturer—it is purchased from a third party. Removing a single bank of RAM can save more than $1USD per unit in the cutthroat TV market.
Next: USB 3.0 in set-top boxes
TV chips in 2011 had USB 2.0 hosts fully integrated into the TV’s SoC. This allowed TV makers to incorporate a single standard chip. Low-end TVs used the same chip, but did not provide the USB 2.0 ports on the outside of the TV. For the high-end TVs with USB ports, consumers could buy a USB video camera and mount it on their TV. Usually, the video camera was a specific model, sold only by the TV manufacturer. The same USB ports could be used to connect the TV to the internet with a WiFi USB dongle, or connect a digital camera or flash memory to view pictures or video. The Hisense TV allowed use of four applications at once.
More, faster data transfer requires USB 3.0
Fast forward to today. All major TV makers offer a built-in video camera for video conferencing. These systems use USB internally to connect the TV chip and the camera. For example, Figure 2 below taken at CES 2013, you can see this Panasonic TV has three external USB ports.
Figure 2: Panasonic TV with three USB Ports as seen at CES 2013
It is likely there is a 4th port used internally for a USB to WiFi connection. In at least one case, Samsung’s Smart Interaction feature uses the camera for gesture control and face recognition, and its microphone for voice control.
While USB 2.0 throughput is sufficient for video conferencing, the higher demands of gesture control require USB 3.0. Why? Gesture control improves with higher resolution cameras, and at least two cameras. If you’ve seen a teardown of the Microsoft Kinect USB Video Camera, which is used for gesture control in video gaming, you’ll see that it includes at least two imaging sensors. One camera captures a full-color image of the action and displays the user on the screen. The second camera, which is infrared, coordinates with data from the video camera to map out the human body. The two data streams together make a 3D model of the body for fairly accurate mapping and fine gesture control.
However, gamers will tell you that this interface isn’t sensitive enough. Improved sensor control requires more data from multiple angles. With more video data delivered at 1080p, 30 frames per second would need 1.7 Gigabits throughput per second. This is at least five times faster than the effective throughput of USB 2.0
Trying to move this much video data through a USB 2.0 connection requires compression next to the image sensor, transmission over USB 2.0, and then decompression when it reaches the central processor. Compressing and decompressing the video produces unwanted delays due to the additional CPU cycles. For gamers, it means slower motion sensing and more lag—basically, slow response times between the gamer’s motion and the TV/game’s response.
Connections outside the TV
Moving forward, at least two USB 3.0 ports will be available on the outside of TVs, such as those found on the Panasonic Viera. Using these ports, consumers can connect a USB 3.0 hard drive to the TV for direct recording. Attaching USB 3.0 drives will allow recording of up to four high-definition (HD) channels at once. A 3 terabyte (TB) USB 3.0 hard drive will hold 300 hours and a 6 TB USB 3.0 hard drive can hold 600 hours of HD TV shows. The second port can be used for connecting to a USB 3.0 video camera for the transfer and display of HD or 4K videos.
USB 2.0 can’t support recording multiple channels of HD, uncompressed, encrypted content, so USB 3.0 is required. While TVs can currently record four channels, future TVs will easily record more. Recording multiple HD channels requires high throughput. Compressed video might be handled with slower speeds, but minimizing compression allows for faster display on the screen. Faster USB 3.0 throughput reduces lag and provides more reliable delivery of content to display and to storage. Faster delivery to storage also reduces the RAM required. If the TV has to wait to write data into storage (or hold data for display when reading from storage) then more RAM is required for buffering the video data. Reducing RAM has a direct impact on reducing the cost of a TV since RAM is not designed by the TV manufacturer—it is purchased from a third party. Removing a single bank of RAM can save more than $1USD per unit in the cutthroat TV market.
Next: USB 3.0 in set-top boxes
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bnowak
2/1/2013 1:54 PM EST
4 USB ports, all on the back of that huge tv. When will manufacturers realize they need to be placing these somewhere that’s easily accessible?
I recently bought a 60" and mounted it on my wall. Good luck plugging any USBs into the back without actually being able to see what you’re doing or even knowing whether the usb stick is oriented the right way. I ended up having to use and still do use an extension cable to bring the usb port out to the front (although the manual specifically states not to)
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