The FINANCIAL -- GE Intelligent Platforms today
announced an enhanced version of the ICS-8580 rugged high definition
video compression XMC module.
According to General Electric Company, designed in response to the growing use of video in a broad range of defense applications, it allows very high quality moving images to be captured, transmitted and stored at very high speed with very low latency and with minimal consumption of precious bandwidth or disk space. As such, it can make a significant contribution to superior decision making and improved troop safety.
The ICS-8580 can capture video inputs and archive or stream them over Ethernet, managing multiple streams and performing capture, manipulation, conversion, compression, storage, decompression and video display. Its rugged XMC form factor means that it is compact, lightweight and consumes little power, enabling it to be easily deployed in systems destined for deployment in harsh environments that are constrained by size, weight and power.
The original version of the ICS-8580 has been widely deployed in programs such as NASA’s Global Hawk initiative. In video capture and transmission, the primary challenge is how to maintain video quality in order to maximize critical detail while minimizing the use of bandwidth by implementing highly efficient algorithms: transmitting ‘raw’, unprocessed high definition video data at very high speed requires bandwidth that is rarely available in, for example, air-to-ground applications. Similarly, storage of high definition video data – for later review and analysis, for example - in its uncompressed form can require terabytes of disk space.
The ICS-8580 features H.264 video compression/decompression technology, which is widely regarded as being the optimum solution: it is considered to be up to 3x as efficient as other codec solutions, allowing vital image detail to be retained while occupying the minimum possible bandwidth or storage.
Related Stories
