NEC Electronics Corporation and its subsidiaries announced today two new MPEG2 encoder devices to incorporate hardware-based analog video-capture functionality for the first time in the industry.

The new system LSI chips, product names µPD61153 and µPD61154, have embedded on a single chip an MPEG2 encoder, a three-dimensional (3D) luminance/chrominance (Y/C) separator, a video decoder and a PCITM interface supporting 4-channel direct memory access (DMA), enabling high quality video capturing. In addition, the µPD61154 chip supports Dolby Digital® audio encoding capability.

MPEG2 encoding is a key function for compressing video data into the MPEG2 format, and a 3D Y/C separator is a function necessary to suppress the "cross chrominance" and/or "cross luminance" effects seen in conventional 2D Y/C separation.

A video decoder converts analog video signals to digital signals, while the PCI interface handles the connection to the main PC board. These functions have also been offered by NEC Electronics in previously announced discrete devices for similar applications.

NEC Electronics' 3D Y/C separator LSI and MPEG2 encoder LSI enjoy broad market acceptance, and based on extensive design experience in digital audio/video products, the company is able to successfully integrate the functions required for high-quality video capture in the PC market. These integrated devices provide a cost reduction of approximately 50 percent and also reduce the board area by 50 percent.

Samples of the µPD61153 and µPD61154 are now available at a price of US$50 each in a 272-pin plastic ball-grid array (PBGA) package (21mm x 21mm). Volume production is expected to begin in August 2004 with monthly shipment quantity expected to reach 300,000 units in April 2005.

Pricing and availability are subject to change.