Dual-Channel Orion CC Card Speeds PAL/NTSC Video Streams for Aerospace and Defense Embedded Systems
CAMBRIDGE, UK — Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing, a leading designer and manufacturer of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) VME, VPX and CompactPCI products for the aerospace and defense market, has announced a new rugged, conduction-cooled dual-channel video compression/decompression board, the Orion CC, available in the PMC form factor for use in VME and CompactPCI systems. It joins the earlier air-cooled Orion PMC/PCI card, to expand Curtiss-Wrights JPEG 2000 product family. The Orion CC is ideally suited for deployed systems requiring distribution and/or storage of video sensor information.
“The demand for real-time distribution and storage of high quality video sources in the deployed military market continues to grow,” said Alan McCormick, managing director, Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing, radar and video group. “The rugged Orion CC, the latest addition to our video product portfolio, further enhances our ability to offer the most advanced JPEG 2000 compression / decompression functionality for these critical applications.”
The Orion CC features dual on-board JPEG 2000 engines to support full-frame encoding of standard 625-line PAL or 525-line NTSC composite video.
With significantly better low bit-rate compression performance than its predecessor, JPEG, JPEG 2000 is a new image coding system that uses state-of-the-art compression techniques based on wavelet technology.
In input mode, Orion CC can accept up to ten analog video inputs. It can select two input channels for simultaneous compression using the JPEG 2000 standard. The cards compression engine supports full-frame rate encoding of standard PAL or NTSC composite video, outputting a JPEG 2000 compliant data stream onto the PCI bus.
In output mode, Orion CC receives one or two JPEG 2000 data streams via the 64-bit, 66 MHz PCI bus, decompresses the data streams, and outputs the resulting one or two independent PAL or NTSC video output signals via the cards PMC P4 connector.
As part of a video capture and recording system, the resulting compressed video streams can be stored locally or distributed over a network to a remote display.
Orion CC Features
• JPEG2000 real-time video compression / decompression
• Dual-channel capability
• Full frame rate encoding of standard NTSC and PAL video
• Up to ten video input channels with two selectable for compression
• Programmable compression ratios
• 100% software compatible with the currently available Orion PMC/PCI board.
• Available at the Level 200 conduction-cooled ruggedization level
JPEG 2000 Video Compression
JPEG 2000 supports a programmable compression ratio and offers excellent performance for real-time video sequences with the added benefit of low latency and minimal resynchronize times. JPEG 2000 compresses each frame of video independently which means that, in the event of a disturbance to the video stream, resynchronization can occur on the next frame boundary. MPEG algorithms compress video by identifying temporally redundant datain sequences of frames: a side-effect of this is that MPEG takes longer to recover from any disturbance to the video stream.
Software Support
Software support for Orion includes drivers for Windows, Linux and VxWorks operating environments. A low-level driver and comprehensive board support library provides a set of C functions for the card. This library of functions is portable to many operating systems and host processor platforms, and provides a set of low-level functions to initialize and control operations of the card. . For full details, please contact the factory
Pricing for the conduction-cooled Orion starts at $4,500. Availability is Q4 2008
For editorial information regarding Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing Multi Computing products or services, contact John Wranovics, Director of Media Relations, Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing, Tel: (925) 640-6402; email. [email protected]. Web site: www.cwcembedded.com.
Inquiries: Please forward all Sales and reader service inquiries to Jerri-Lynne Charbonneau, Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing, Tel: (613) 254-5112; Fax: (613) 599-7777; e-mail: [email protected].
About Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing
Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing is the industrys most comprehensive and experienced single source for embedded solutions, ranging from Processing, Subsystems, Data Communication, DSP, Video & Graphics to the most advanced board level components and fully integrated custom systems. The Embedded Computing group serves the defense, aerospace, commercial and industrial markets and is part of Curtiss-Wright Controls Inc. For more information about Curtiss-Wright visit www.cwcembedded.com.
About Curtiss-Wright Controls, Inc.
Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Curtiss-Wright Controls is the motion control segment of Curtiss-Wright Corporation (NYSE: CW). With manufacturing facilities around the world, Curtiss-Wright Controls is a leading technology-based organization providing niche motion control products, subsystems and services internationally for the aerospace and defense markets. For more information, visit www.cwcontrols.com.