Surveillance cameras have evolved quite a lot over the past few years, most modern devices of this type being able to carry out a wide array of tasks, including night surveillance, recording, motion sensing, Internet broadcasting and so on. However, systems that integrate all of these features, as well as video analysis capabilities on top, have been relatively difficult to develop, and also pretty expensive.

However, it would seem things are about to change, since Texas Instruments has just developed an advanced systems on a chip (SoC) solution called DMVA1 that targets the video surveillance market and provides entry level analytics by integrating TI's first generation vision co-processor, which allows customers to easily deploy smart analytics functions such as people counting, trip zone, intelligent motion detection, camera tamper detection and streaming metadata.

According to Texas Instruments, their new SoC includes a 300 MHz ARM926EJ-S core, which allows it to provide support for H.264 in high, main or base profile D1 at 30 frames per second or 720p at reduced frame rates. Furthermore, the built-in video co-processor provides multi-codec support (H.264, MPEG-4 and MJPEG).

Furthermore, it eliminates the need for customers to create custom algorithms in-house or purchase expensive optics to achieve high-quality images as it provides video stabilization, face detection, noise filtering, auto white balance, auto focus, auto exposure and edge enhancement, as well as other video quality enhancements for image improvements and added intelligent video pre-processing.

"Vision is where video compression technology was ten years ago; it was a niche market," said Danny Petkevich, TI's video and vision business unit director. "Now, video is everywhere and TI is excited to push the industry forward by offering our first vision product opening new market opportunities."

The DMVA1 video security camera SoC will begin sampling in 2Q 2010 to early adopter video security customers, but pricing details are unknown, at least for the time being. Most likely, the first actual, real-life products to incorporate these technologies will make their way onto the market at some point in early 2011.


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