Ittiam announces IP video phone solution

BANGALORE, India — Ittiam Systems, a DSP systems and services company based here, has announced a complete solution for IP video phones enabling full duplex audio and video communications over broadband networking, including wireless LANs.

The company is already following on a solution based on H.264 video compression technology and expects to launch it later this year. This will provide video communications through increasingly narrow channels at even 56 kilobits per second.

The solution, built around a Texas Instruments TMS320DM642 DSP, includes signal processing software, networking, protocol stack and a hardware reference design. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) making two-way video communications systems will be able to hit the market within four months of licensing the Ittiam solution, said Srini Rajam, chairman and CEO, Ittiam Systems Pvt. Ltd.

A modular package of audio and video processing functions, call control protocols and network protocols are integrated in a common framework and run on a single DSP. The video processing is based on MPEG-4 encoding, capable of full motion video up to 30 frames per second at VGA resolution, and will be followed by a H.264-based solution.

Ittiam's video phone platform should enable significant reduction in product development time, said Pradeep Bardia, video marketing manager, Texas Instruments (India) Pvt. Ltd.

Ittiam is now in talks with three Asian and American companies to license the technology to and expects to sign at least one deal in three months, Rajam said.

"The end-user cost for an IP video phone will be between $300-$400 and this affordable cost will see video communications in full-motion 30 fps at VGA resolution," he added.