Xilinx Reference Designs at IBC
September 6, 2012—We talked with Xilinx about the release of some new reference designs directed towards the broadcast industry. These new designs cover the entire range of content processing, from capture to delivery.
The broadcast landscape is becoming more complex, as facility technologies move to the consumer. The transition to digital puts a premium on performance and flexibility. Content distribution through broadcast, satellite, cable now requires a high-performance end to end chain that can handle the necessary bandwidth. In addition, all the transport modes are moving to multiple formats. The convergence of telecommunications, broadcast, and the Internet affects all the areas in the production chain.
At the inject end, data is in SDI and TCP/IP formats. Next it goes to the production areas where HDMI is added for HD monitoring. After mixing and editing, it goes to the distribution stages in SDI, then is transported in yet another format to near-end points to be viewed in HD monitor again. The formats include 4k, 2k, 120 fps, h.264 for various platforms from TV to smart phones, and others. Some of the content needs to have low latency so the various encoding steps have to work quickly.
Programmable devices are used in all these stages, and the latest reference designs belong in the production stage where SDI streams are transcoded to other formats and viewed. Production efficiency demands fast equipment to enhance the file-based workflows, automated playout, and media asset manage tools. More software helps, but the hardware throughput also matters. On top of all these issues, the formats are changing, so some of the accelerated functions have to be in hardware, and only programmable logic is up to the task.
One part or their announcements is the variety of video processing functions for the edit suite. These include resolution conversion, combiner/splitters, picture-by picture, picture-in-picture, and other combinations of multi-viewers. One of their program partners, OmniTek, has developed a Zynq-based broadcast development kit to provide a platform for broadcast functions. the reference designs take advantage of the integrated Arm processor to offer hardware and software programmability. This combination allows a broadcast company to identify functions needing acceleration and try a software version to confirm operations. After the functionality is fixed, the function is moved into the hardware structures on the same chip, so no new interfaces or interconnections are needed.
The OmniTek kit includes various video processing IP and supports up to 8 channels of video. The video development platform is to be released in Q1 of ’13. For more information, please visit the Xilinx Broadcast page or the OmniTek website.
The other main announcement is from another partner, Barco Silex. This video over IP solution uses existing 1 GbE or 10 GbE wiring to reduce cabling and infrastructure costs. SDI data streams are transformed to Ehternet for transport to the various areas for viewing and editing.
The IP and other platform functions are based on the 7 series FPGAs that are targeted for the high-performance applications. Barco will be a systems integrator to incorporate the various Xilinx blocks like SMPTE 2022, SMPTE SDI, and Ethernet MACs into a shared memory system with multiple IP blocks. Reference designs will help users get up to speed quickly.
The programmable systems will allow developers to mix and match the various IP blocks to meet their specific requirements and will also help to reduce power and costs while increasing performance. For more information about Barco Silex’s portfolio of advanced IP cores, please contact barco-silex@barco.com or visit www.barco-silex.com.
