Free Hardware Implementation of Theora Videoencoder

FPGA are excellent devices for advancing the achievements of the Free Software into the hardware world and Elphel model 333 camera is a project in this area. Being the next step to the previous Elphel design that used reconfigurable Xilinx FPGA for the fast JPEG/motion JPEG compression the model 333 uses new Xilinx Spartan 3 to implement more advanced Ogg Theora videoencoder that is capable of processing 1.3Mpix images at 30 fps, larger images (up to 4.5 MPix) can be served at proportionally lower frame rate. Motion compensation is not currently implemented but the required bandwidth for average videosecurity applications (where the camera does not move) is still much lower than that needed for the conventional motion JPEG streams. Theora was chosen because while providing better compression than MPEG-2 this format usage does not require payment of the license fees for the patents involved. Camera code (both software and FPGA) is available under GNU/GPL.

Andrey N. Filippov has over 25 years of experience in the embedded systems design. Since graduation from the Moscow Institute for Physics and Technology in 1978 he worked for the General Physics Institute (Moscow, Russia) in the area of high-speed high-resolution,mixed signal design, application of PLDs and FPGAs, and microprocessor-based embedded system hardware and software design, with a special focus on image acquisition methods for laser physics studies and computer automation of scientific experiments. Andrey holds a PhD in Physics from the Moscow Institute for Physics and Technology. In 1995 Andrey moved to the United States and after working for Cordin Company (Salt Lake City, Utah) for 6 years in 2001 started Elphel, Inc. dedicated to doing business in emerging field of open systems based on free (GNU/GPL) software and open hardware.