Reference design brings H.264/VC-1 to consumer PCs

Micronas has launched what it claims to be the first PCI Express H.264/VC-1 decoder reference design for the PC market. The MicRacer1D-X allows OEMs to offer H.264/AVC and VC-1 content consumption on desktop computers.

According to Micronas, the design of the MicRacer 1D-X board allows it to handle the H.264 or VC-1 decode process in hardware so that it does not tax the systems CPU or require a special graphics adapter. In addition, product is said to consume less power and enables low-noise operation. Micronas adds that OEMs will be able to integrate this capability at more than fifty percent less than the cost of using high-performance CPUs or GPUs with H.264 acceleration.

The product's PCI Express capability is provided by the Micronas APB 7202A nGene multimedia controller. The controller sources H.264 or VC-1 streams via the PCI Express bus and supplies them to Micronas DeCypher 8100 streaming media decoder for H.264 hardware decode. The DeCypher 8100 supports full decode of H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 streams.