Ready to watch double the number of videos on phones

Ready to watch double the number of videos on phones

Before this year end, get ready to watch double the number of videos or films on your smartphones at the same bandwidth your phone already has. "Even if you have a phone which has a bandwidth of 2 mbps, you can watch a few ultra high-definition movies on it or double the number of standard definition movies," explains Srini Rajam, chairman and CEO of Ittiam Systems.

What will facilitate this surge is a new video compression technology that has the capability of compressing large visual and audio formats which, in turn, can be transmitted at a fraction of their size.

This new video encoding technology, called H.265, is yet to be ratified as a standard. But global chip-maker Qualcomm is in the process of facilitating this on their latest chip Snapdragon 800, with the software platform offered by Bangalorebased Ittiam Systems. Semiconductor players like Qualcomm and Broadcom and software providers like Ittiam, among others, are tweaking their chipsets and solutions to offer high quality video on mobile devices and smart TVs.

While Qualcomm and Ittiam are working on the H.265 technology which ensures high-quality video with less streaming, better audio clarity, requires low bandwidth and maintains a good battery life, Broadcom is ramping up the Wi-Fi capabilities of its chips.

Broadcom will be bringing out latest 5G Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones in the first quarter of 2013. Both these semiconductor players are ready with their respective technologies so as not to lose out in the race when these technologies enter the market for mobile devices, especially the smartphone market, in a big way.

The smartphone market has seen an uptick in demand for chips from two of the biggest players, Samsung and Apple. Samsung and Apple together consumed $45.3 billion of semiconductors in 2012, an increase of $7.9 billion from 2011, to represent 15% of total semiconductor demand, while the total semiconductor market decreased by 3% overall, states Gartner. Broadcom counts Samsung and Apple as its customers.

With smartphone sales growing by 38% last quarter to reach 217 million units worldwide, and over 700 million units for the entire year, according to reports, major chip-makers are gearing up to bite a big share of this market through their technology edge. Talking of the new H.265 technology, Dr Murthy Renduchintala, executive vicepresident, Qualcomm Technologies and co-president of Qualcomm Mobile and Computing, says: "Smartphone users can watch ultra HD quality films and audio tracks without worrying about the battery life of the phone.

Qualcomm Snapdragon processors deliver this capability to enhance the experience of mobile users at very competitive power versus performance equation." Ultra HD (2160 pixel) offers double the picture clarity compared to the HD format (1080 pixel). This evolving video compression technology is a new landmark. It started with the MPEG1 version which was seen in video compact discs.

This evolved into the MPEG2 version as is seen in DVDs, to the MPEG4 version as seen in camcoders, to the H.264 version which relies on the internet. In the latest standard -- H.265 -- the amount of bandwidth consumed by a smartphone/smart TV can be cut by 40-50%, explains Srini Rajam. The new video technology also reduces buffering to a great extent, he says.

To boot, it is now ready for original equipment manufacturers to integrate into phones, says Rajam. The addition of this premium feature is likely to raise the cost of handsets, but it is left to the OEMs to decide that, he says. Smartphones with H.265 functionality are expected in the market in the second half of this year, after the technology gets ratified, says Murthy of Qualcomm.

"The major precepts involving this technology are ready and the technical turbulence is over," he says. Asked whether this technology can push up sales of Snapdragon 800, Murthy says, "it could be one of the many stimuli". Qualcomm, saw a 36% rise in net profit in the first quarter of fiscal 2013 because of an uptake in the demand for 3G/4G devices in emerging markets like China.

Meanwhile, Broadcom, which makes chips which help mobile devices connect to the Internet better, is dabbling with a new Wi-Fi standard, called 5G Wi-Fi, which the company has already demonstrated in the smart TV range at the Consumer Electronics Show last month. Broadcom had brought out the industry's first complete 5G Wi-Fi combo chips for smartphones, tablets, ultrabooks and other mobile devices in July, 2012.

However, the first 5G Wi-Fi enabled smartphones will be shipped in the first quarter of 2013, says Rahul Patel, VP of wireless connectivity combos at Broadcom's Mobile & Wireless Group. These chips have the capacity to step up bandwidth almost four-fold and can help users stream content like videos to the phone, tablet or PC quickly. Besides, a number of devices can be connected to the existing network.

Data can be accessed at any point of the house or office because 5G Wi-Fi has a broader coverage. At the same time, it ensures longer battery life, says Patel. The key reasons which are driving the need for the transition to 5G Wi-Fi is the explosion of video consumption, says Patel. Reports estimate that video accounts for approximately half of the total internet traffic today.

Video traffic is estimated to account for 90% of the global consumer traffic by 2015, he says. Beside this, with 55% of the video being watched via tablets, smartphones and smart TVs, the current wireless networks will not be sufficient to handle rising bandwidth needs.