[Theora-dev] RE: DSP stamp

Andrew Seddon
Mon, 01 Nov 2004 15:59:38 -0000

Hi John, (as you did I've copied to the xiph mailing list as this is
probably interesting to a few people!)

Indeed this is the target market for the DSP Stamp, in fact we will shortly
be releasing a Bluetooth video camera development kit. The idea being people
can implement their own compression/machine vision algorithms. Applications
include webcam's, integrated robot eye's and machine vision cameras.

The Theora codec is definitely very interesting. We are currently looking at
porting the open source MPEG4 codec xvid to the DSP Stamp. This is primarily
because the codec has been ported to other similar embedded architectures. I
suspect an initial port of Theora would be fairly easy, the difficultly will
come with optimising the codec to run real time.

If you are interested in looking at a port I'm sure we can help you out with
some hardware.

Anyway let me know what you think,

Kind regards,

Andrew Seddon(andrew.seddon@camsig.co.uk)
Cambridge Signal Processing, Ltd. (www.camsig.co.uk)
TEL: +44 1354 742563
FAX: +44 1354 740693


-----Original Message-----
From: John Kintree [mailto:jkintree@swbell.net]
Sent: 29 October 2004 03:39
To: Andrew Seddon
Cc: theora-dev@xiph.org
Subject: Re: DSP stamp

Yes, the Theora codec is based on VP3, which is an earlier version of ON2's
VP6 codec.  Theora is currently at its alpha 3 release, and is stable enough

to have been used already for streaming live video from a number of
conferences, and for encoding several videos that can be found at
www.theora.org.

Development has progressed to the point that the value of the codec can be
seen.  That value could be enhanced, I believe, by implementing the codec in

silicon.

When I saw the Oct. 22, 2004 announcement of your DSP stamp at
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4405077268.html
it seemed like your module might be a candidate for embedded hardware that
could allow camcorders or webcams to encode video into theora format in
real-time.  I look forward to any further information you can share about
this.
Regards,
John

On Thursday 28 October 2004 01:33 pm, you wrote:
> Mr Kintree,
> Thanks for your enquiry. I don't have any direct experience with the
Theora
> codec, however we are currently in negotiation with ON2 to provide their
> codec's on our hardware. I am currently waiting for them to get back to
me
> with some further technical specifications. As soon as I get these I will
> pass them on. From this information you should be able to extrapolate some
> rough performance figures for the theora codec, which I believe is based
on
> an earlier version of ON2's VP6 codec.
>
> Can I ask if you have a specific application in mind and if you are
> interested in porting the theora codec?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Andrew Seddon(andrew.seddon@camsig.co.uk)
> Cambridge Signal Processing, Ltd. (www.camsig.co.uk)
> TEL: +44 1354 742563
> FAX: +44 1354 740693
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Kintree [mailto:jkintree@swbell.net]
> Sent: 28 October 2004 18:23
> To: sales@camsig.co.uk
> Subject: DSP stamp
>
> Would the DSP stamp, if built into webcams or camcorders, allow for
> real-time compression of video in ogg theora format?
> Thanks,
> John Kintree
> http://www.theora.org