eInfochips' IPNetCam reference design targeted at OEMs

Pradeep Chakraborty

AHMEDABAD, INDIA - eInfochips, a leading provider of silicon design, product design and application software services, has recently launched the IPNetCam, a smart IP surveillance camera IPNetCam reference design. The IPNetCam reference design is a ready-to-go solution that will enable the OEMs to build a range of smart IP surveillance cameras easily and quickly, targeted for different applications.

Pratul Shroff, CEO, said the reference design was targeted at large OEMs who build security products for verticals such as transportation, banking, retail, government, home networking, critical infrastructure, etc.

The IPNetCam is a smart surveillance camera reference design based on Texas Instruments' (TI) DaVinci technology. Based on TI's TMS320DM6446 platform it is fully enabled for intelligent surveillance applications. Features include object detection, classification and tracking. This reference design offers manufacturers a complete hardware and software package to design smart IP surveillance solutions with variety of advanced features.

The camera form factor hardware is optimized for BOM (bill of materials) and features all of the necessary interfaces. The software is compliant to TI's DaVinci XDM framework. Based on Linux OS, the software supports dual-mode encoding and ObjectVideo OnBoard algorithm for content analytics.

IPNetCam also features a highly-sensitive 3megapixel, 1/2" progressive scan CMOS sensor with electronic rolling shutter (ERS) and global reset release (GRR). It also supports electronic PTZ (pan-tilt-zoom), auto white balance, day/night, lens shading and image scaling features.

It supports three compression formats -- JPEG, MPEG-4, and H.264, respectively, allowing users to choose the appropriate combination of encoding to match network environment and monitoring applications. It also supports CIF, QCIF, VGA and D1 resolutions with 30fps (frames-per-second) performance for all the compression formats. With triple streaming feature, one JPEG and two MPEG4 images can be streamed simultaneously.

Commenting on the uniqueness of IPNetCam's design, Shroff said the camera utilized ObjectVideo OnBoard, an industry-leading technology for video content analysis. This allows rule-based object detection, classification, tracking and real-time alerting. He added: "ObjectVideo OnBoard technology benefits to integrators and customers alike is less back-end hardware, faster implementation, lower power and cooling requirements, a smaller hardware footprint, thereby lowering the overall total cost of ownership."

IPNetCam was unveiled this March at TI's global Developer Conference (TIDC). According to Shroff, more than three large OEMs were evaluating the IPNetCam. "Once these prospective OEMs have evaluated IPNetCam, based on the degree of the customization required, the product will be out soon. eInfochips, as Texas Instruments' Third Party Partner, gets access to its huge sales channels network and market reach," he advised.