Origin UK says it has developed a generic technology that is capable of doubling the performance of video codecs, regardless of which compression system they use.

Codecs are devices that take an analog signal, digitize it, and compress the resultant signal down to as small a bandwidth as possible, with the proviso that the codec must operate in real time. Codecs are typically found in mobile phones and, in the case of video codecs, in videoconferencing systems.

Origin, which forms part of the Dutch Philips group of companies, has developed a video content analysis processor (VCAP) engine that sits in front of the codec and examines the video images for movement, deciding which parts of the picture are the most critical. Armed with this information, the VCAP is able to only feed that video data to the codec which represents the most important regions in the motion video stream. At the other end of the link, a second VCAP processes the data and reconstitutes it to form an image very close to that originally encoded.

According to Origin, the VCAP system can compress a 64,000 bits-per- second (bps) videoconferencing data stream down to as little as 24,000 bps -- under the 28,800 bps data stream limit of a V.34 analog modem. This, the company claims, could see the arrival of ISDN (integrated services digital network) quality videoconferencing systems that work across POTS (plain old telephone service) lines.

Origin claims that VCAP is applicable to all types of digital video, being capable of reducing digital video noise and tracking moving targets, but is especially relevant to low band width applications such as video telephony and the Internet.

Philip Gilks, Origin's business development manager, said that the company's R&D staff were among the first in the industry to develop real-time fractal video compression technology back in 1993. "For the last three years, the team has been analyzing video streams to establish the most efficient ways of encoding them. We're already in discussion with several major organizations with regards to licensing this technology," he said.

(Sylvia Dennis/19960618/Press Contact: Chris Evenden, GBC, tel +44-181-332-7022, fax +44-181-332-6540, Internet e-mail chrise@gbc.co.uk; Reader Contact: Origin, tel +44-1223-423355, fax +44-1223-420784)