Digital Vision and Vistek announce joint development and OEM Agreement

Digital Vision and Vistek have signed a joint development agreement in order to develop a high quality, motion-compensated HDTV standards converter.
The companies have also signed an OEM agreement whereby Vistek will manufacture and sell the finalised product through its well established channels and to its wide customer base amongst the broadcasting industry.
The requirement for high definition standards conversion has become more important recently since Europe has adopted a high definition television standard based on a 50 Hz field rate, which is incompatible with the 60 Hz formats used in the US and other countries.
The system will utilise a combination of Digital Vision’s Emmy Award-winning PHAME motion estimation algorithm with Vistek’s expertise in video format conversions and will be aimed initially at broadcast sports events and news applications. Motion compensation is critical to the functioning of a high quality video standards converter. Such conversions require that new picture information is automatically generated by combining information from several pictures. In less sophisticated systems any motion present in the original pictures will result in loss of resolution and excessive “lag” or smearing. Advanced motion estimation algorithms can be used to compensate for any motion present and will result in crystal clear converted pictures. This is especially critical in broadcast sports applications since such programs include highly detailed, fast motion imagery.
Vistek and Digital Vision have worked together previously on a similar product for standard definition television applications. The Vector-VMC was awarded an Emmy Award by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
Andrew Osmond, Managing Director of Vistek, said: “We are very pleased to be working with the engineers at Digital Vision again. We had an extremely successful experience with Digital Vision about ten years ago, when we collaborated on the Vector motion-compensated standards converter for the television formats of the day. That product became a standard for sports applications and many are still in use around the world.”
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