Philips Semiconductors has announced a single-chip MPEG-2 video encoder for home PCs. In addition, it is suited to applications that include using the chip to encode broadcast quality video for storage on disk or encoded transmission. The SAA6750H chip is designed to give home PC users a cheaper way to store analog video in a digital form on various media, such as CD or DVD rather than having to buy more expensive professional equipment. It accepts both PAL or NTSC format video signals. The chip uses motion estimation algorithms developed by Philips Research Labs to achieve higher quality and compression at a reasonable cost. It is also the first device to use a motion-compensated temporal noise filtering technique from Philips, developed for professional equipment to remove noise and deliver improved quality pictures. The chip has been optimized to work with two others from Philips. The SAA7111 family, which converts analog TV signals into a digital format and the SAA7146 PCI bridge, which transfers the data from the card into the PC.
