At this month's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, STMicroelectronics demonstrated several innovative technologies for convergence applications of wireless home networks. These included demonstrations of audio/video (A/V) streaming in wireless home IP-based networks and voice-over-IP (VoIP) applications.

Disclosing its state-of-the-art technology for audio/video streaming in wireless home IP-based networks, ST displayed its wireless adaptive video enhanced streaming (WAVES) platform. It includes a universal plug and play (UPnP) media server that is able to stream data to UPnP media renderers, and a transcoder with an error-protection module to assure the best possible user experience. The media server has been designed as an open solution, where it is easy to integrate external data sources, different wireless LAN (WLAN) cards and networks.

In the CES demonstration, three STm80×0-based digital set-top boxes share audiovisual content through an IEEE 802.11g WLAN according to digital living network alliance (DLNA) and UPnP A/V guidelines. As the bandwidth available for A/V streaming continuously varies, an adaptive MPEG-2 transcoder changes the video characteristics in real-time to handle any WLAN impairments. Multimedia delivery reliability is further enhanced through an application-level forward error correction (FEC) scheme that is dynamically adapted to accommodate the changing WLAN conditions by eliminating or significantly reducing packet losses due to burst noise. This adaptive approach, which introduces FEC redundancy only when needed, represents an efficient solution in terms of processing and network overhead.

One of the most important technologies for this scenario is video transcoding, which is a technique that allows compressed digital video streams to be adapted to different network transmission and receiver conditions. ST's Advanced Systems Technology (AST) group is developing a state-of-the-art transcoding technology called dynamic bitstream shaper (DBS), which is a global MPEG-2/H.264 input/output framework that will support changes in bit rate, frame rate, frame size, and coding standard without needing to decode and re-encode the bitstream. Transcoding and FEC are optimally combined by the developer's proprietary cross-layer controller algorithm, which monitors WLAN links quality and selects the most appropriate technique to use.

This demonstration shows also how a mobile phone can be integrated in the wireless home network through two key applications: voice-over-IP and DLNA-compliant control of multimedia home appliances. The Nomadik STm8810-based mobile phone runs a voice-over-IP application using a low-power WLAN solution. Vocoders and effects are controlled through the OpenMAX integration layer API, which allows multimedia components to be easily integrated in a mobile platform. ST participates as a contributor to the definition of the OpenMAX standard, an initiative carried out in the Khronos Group.

“ST's deep know-how in multimedia coding and transmission technologies, coupled with outstanding integration capabilities, is creating the foundation for a new generation of home networked products,” said Alessandro Cremonesi, AST vice president and deputy general manager, systems technology, STMicroelectronics.

The emerging scenario in which heterogeneous devices in the home will connect seamlessly to each other requires the development of a variety of distinct technologies that must all work together in the most effective manner to deliver low cost, low power consumption and high user satisfaction. ST is not only leading the world with its advanced transcoding technologies but is also one of the few semiconductor companies that can master all of these single technologies in a synergistic way, stated the manufacturer.

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