Cisco and Analog Devices in TelePresence collaboration

With business travel becoming more stressful, costly, and time consuming, the Cisco TelePresence Meeting solution is a practical means of defraying company expenses while keeping the intimacy of live, face-to-face communication, said Marthin DeBeer, vice president, Emerging Markets Technology Group, Cisco. ADI's video signal processing capabilities and applications expertise allowed our design team to stretch its imagination and create applications never before seen in traditional video communication solutions, to change business practices and drive productivity.

The Cisco TelePresence Meeting system is capable of handling real-time, ultra-high definition 1080p video communications with easy, immediate call setup with the touch of a single button. Cisco’s solution minimizes overall expense by utilizing the power of the underlying network to accommodate the exchange of ultra-high definition images with the appropriate priority and quality of service from site-to-site. This brings an end to the grainy images, jerky movements, dropped calls, frustrating setups, and wasted time associated with two-way videoconferencing systems. The system also eliminates expensive monthly rental charges for dedicated videoconference networks and services.

During Cisco's in-house development of Cisco TelePresence, the Blackfin processor's unique programmable architecture also allowed Cisco to mitigate project risks and hardware redesigns associated with alternative fixed-function ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits) to reduce risk, cut time to market, and to enable quick addition of new features using the network.

Analog Devices' ability to tackle hard engineering problems to process real-world information like audio, video and voice is a fuel for the customer innovation that is shaping the way people interact with technology, said Brian McAloon, vice president, DSP and Systems Division, Analog Devices. Cisco recognized that it could radically change the way people communicate and collaborate via video and saw Analog Devices as a key technology collaborator. The Cisco Telepresence system uses the IP network - as the platform - to enable this powerful new medium that will redefine the user experience to drive productivity not only in a boardroom but at all levels of a company.

Low-Latency HD Video Made Possible Over Existing IP Networks

The aspects of video transmission that separate the Cisco TelePresence Meeting system from traditional video conferencing products stems from the Blackfin processor's new category of 720p and 1080p HD encode/decode technology in combination with Cisco's innovative software architecture. This enables truly life-like interaction with people in real-time via a wider range of campus, metro, and global IP network implementations, thus lowering the cost and time of deployment. The Cisco TelePresence Meeting system uses Cisco’s video compression solution to shrink video traffic payloads to fit in existing network architectures with minimum impact to system bandwidth with imperceptible delay. In turn, this allows pristine quality, low-latency ultra-high definition video to instantly connect multiple users across the globe.

Analog Devices' Blackfin processor embodies a new breed of 16/32-bit embedded processor by achieving the industry's highest performance and power efficiency for applications where a convergence of capabilities – multi-format audio, video, voice and image processing; multi-mode baseband and packet processing; and real-time security and control processing – are critical. A powerful, scalable software-programmable architecture that blends microcontroller (MCU) and digital signal processing (DSP) capabilities in one integrated chip, the Blackfin has gained widespread adoption in convergent applications such as digital home entertainment; networked and streaming media; automotive telematics and infotainment; and digital radio and mobile TV.