November 23, 2007 -- The expansion of digital video technology from a few dedicated applications, such as camcorders and security systems, to a wider range of consumer products strains traditional video development methods. Historically, these methods include considerable amounts of hand-coding by experts who are familiar with the latest coding/decoding (codec) standards and can write assembly code for high-performance signal processing platforms.

Manufacturers of signal processing technology are addressing this problem by providing development environments that integrate processors, development tools, software and systems expertise to enable designers to work at a high system level of abstraction in developing video applications. This allows designers to focus on the application functionality and implement video, audio, voice and imaging technology through simple calls to an application programming interface (API) that handles details such as the implementation of specific codec engines and matching screen resolution.

By J.B. Fowler. (Fowler is a Video Systems Applications Engineer, DSP Systems, Texas Instruments, Inc.)