Newtown, Pennsylvania-based Tseng Labs Inc is gearing up for production shipments of its VIPeR f/x advanced video image processor, its cheap and cheerful way of turning MPEG-1 pictures in MPEG-2 quality ones. The product is the company’s second generation video image processor, said to be cheaper and with better interpolation. Costs have been kept down, the company said, by sharing dynamic RAM with the graphics processor and eliminating the need to use the more expensive Video RAM. It is claimed that the processor enables sizing and scaling of video images to arbitrary window sizes from 16 by 16 pixels to 1,024 by 768 in true colour without dropping frames. And although MPEG-2 is still preferable for broadcast applications, the improvements in sizing and gamma correction provided by the Viper f/x will enhance MPEG-1 to a comparable quality on the desktop, reckons Tseng Labs. Other improvements in this product over the original include internal windows masking control, hardware support for the display of multiple video windows and a glueless interface to multiple bus devices. It can perform real-time reductions and enlargements of Cinepak, Indeo, and MPEG titles and games, as well as broadcast television. The VIPeR f/x uses the company’s Weighted Area Averaging algorithm, which is claimed to eliminate jagged edges and artefacts that are often seen in video that has been enlarged. It’s also compatible with popular capture and editing software packages on the market, said the firm.
