ADS DVD Xpress Converter - Page 2
The Converter
It is very interesting to see how this device works. The DVD Xpress is capable
of encoding audio and video streams in DVD quality. But let's take a closer
look at the mainboard. Opening the device's case will void the warranty,
so we advise against it. Instead, use the photos in this review for a closer
look under the hood. Clicking
on the images below will open high resolution
images.
The general concept with this device is rather simple. There are chipsets
are used to receive video and audio signal, convert them to digital signals,
and
pass them to the audio or video encoder. The encoders take over to produce
a single MPEG-2 or MPEG-1 file, stored on the hard disk via the USB2.0
interface. The main advantage of DVD Xpress is that ADS Tech chose to use a
class A video encoder, as you will discern from the following chipset images.
Looking at the mainboard a little closer, we can see that it consists
of a series of chipsets used for encoding and decoding of the video and audio
streams. To
be more precise, it consists of the following:
Cypress CY7C68013 USB 2.0 controller
Cirrus Logic CS92199 MPEG Encoder
Microchip 24LC16B 16K EEPROM
Philips 74LVC04A CMOS device
Philips' chipsets are mainly used to receive audio and video signals and
send them to the encoder that takes over the "hard work". The DVD
Xpress uses an updated version of the CS92288 chipset, the advanced Cirrus
Logic CS92199 MPEG Encoder,
a chipset that can be found in professional DVD recorders and players. This
produces excellent quality results when converting to MPEG-2 format. Strangely
enough, while the chipset is able to encode to AC3 audio directly, the
device does not
seem to support this feature.
The 74LVC04A is a high-performance, low-power, low-voltage, Si-gate CMOS
device with low power consumption . The 24LC16B is a 16K bit Electrically Erasable
PROM memory organized as eight
blocks of 256 x 8-bit memory with an I2C compatible 2-wire serial
interface bus.
