Media Excel is shipping a real-time software decoder and streaming package for Linux on x86. SoftStream Player supports MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and H.264 compressed video, and targets Celeron, VIA C3, and Transmeta Crusoe based devices powerful enough to do without a hardware decoder.

According to Media Excel, eliminating video decoding hardware can save device manufacturers $20 to $30 dollars per unit. Softstream can be used in Internet Protocol set-top boxes (IP-STBs), Internet Protocol television (IP-TV), Digital Media receivers (DMRs), Digital Multimedia broadcasting (DMB), and multimedia rich Internet Appliance applications.

The company says Softstream consumes less than 55% CPU utilization on a Celeron 733 MHz with the 815 chipset. It supports full-D1 resolution of MPEG-2 [email protected], MPEG-4 Simple Profile, and MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile up to Level 5, as well as CIF resolution of H.264. It supports real-time decoding of MPEG-2 streams up to 10 Mbps, MPEG-4 streams up to 5 Mbps, and H.264 from 256 Kbps to 1 Mbps. It also includes support for multicasting and Video On-Demand (VoD) network operations, according to Media Excel.

“Our software decoder has been tested extensively under extremely difficult conditions, such as broadcasting, packet loss, multicasting, and channel switching. SoftStream Player remains interoperable with middleware content delivery solutions in VoD environments,” noted Media Excel CEO Jongil Kim. “Major consumer electronics companies and MPEG application device vendors have successfully shipped products in volume based on our market-proven code base.”

Media Excel offers an SDK for its SoftStream Player, as well as OEM licensing.

 
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