China's AVS codec gains more top-tier support

Both Broadcom Corp. and Conexant Systems Inc. are working on chips for China's Audio Video Coding Standard (AVS). They join STMicroelectronics, which already supports the codec in software, and is spinning a hardware optimized version that will be ready by the fourth quarter.

In that same time period, one of Broadcom's 65-nanometer based products will include custom hardware accelerators to support AVS, said Aidan O'Rourke, a Broadcom executive in charge of IPTV products.

Conexant plans to have its silicon ready for sampling by the first quarter of 2008, a spokeswoman said. Texas Instruments is also able to offer DSP-based support.

In a recent report, market researcher iSuppli noted that AVS will coexist with H.264 in the China market. However, it expects H.264 to be dominant in the long run, capturing about 60 percent of the IPTV market by 2011.

That will largely depend on China Telecom. Its rival, China Netcom, is officially committed to AVS and is favoring suppliers that will offer a free upgrade path. China Telecom, however, favors H.264. But there is a chance that politicking may trump business and technical considerations if the government, which controls China Telecom, "suggests" that it use AVS. China Telecom is already preparing to test the AVS codec in one field trial this month.

There are also preparations being made by cable operators to possibly switch away from MPEG-2 and H.264 and over to AVS. "There has been no official announcement, except with China Netcom for AVS, but most of the (cable) operators, especially the big ones, are trying to be prepared when it comes," said W.S. Kim, head of China set-top box operations for STMicroelectronics.

A handful of Chinese chip companies are also targeting AVS for set-top boxes. SVA Co and Beijing-based United Source Coding Co. have developed an encoder and Longjing Microelectronics Co., Grandview Semiconductor, and Celestial Semiconductor are working on decoders.