The compression ratio makes the MB86H52 suitable for recording equipment such as hard-disk recorders, where Fujitsu says it can extend recording time by more than 250 percent. As home-network applications become more widespread, the chip is intended to carry full-resolution HD video over narrower bandwidths. It can also be integrated into equipment that needs to reduce video-data size.
The transcoder uses proprietary algorithms developed by Fujitsu Laboratories. It applies less compression to image areas where artefacts are more noticeable, including faces and slowly moving objects, and more compression elsewhere. This approach is intended to preserve image quality in visually critical regions while converting MPEG-2 material to H.264.
The MB86H52 includes a Full HD H.264 codec for encoding uncompressed video into H.264 and decoding compressed or transcoded H.264 data. It uses the same codec as the recently introduced MB86H51.
Many digital terrestrial and satellite broadcasts carry video in MPEG-2. Recording these streams directly to disk produces large data volumes, particularly with high-resolution material, and substantially reduces available recording time. Fujitsu developed the MB86H52 to convert that material into the more efficient H.264 format.
Fujitsu plans to continue developing digital-video processing components around H.264 and Full HD multidecoding for high-performance customer applications.
