DSPs are key in multimedia future

By Doug Rasor, Vice President, Worldwide Strategic Marketing, Texas Instruments Semiconductor Group

Multimedia today is a set of computer-driven applications delivering audio, video and text simultaneously.

It is largely slow, data intensive and dependent upon images and sounds developed for a different medium. For instance, video developed for still or moving photography and audio recorded for tape and CD.

Today's expectations for multimedia involve inexpensive PCs able to handle multi-window, full-duplex, TV-quality video-conferencing with simultaneous high-speed off-computer data transfers. Admirable expectations that are becoming reality.

But imagine what it will be in the future.

DSPs and the perceptive computer

Multimedia is awaiting the inspiration and creative spark that led Ted Turner to create CNN, allowing viewers be a part of news as it unfolds 24-hours-a-day.

And Bill Gates, who took a cumbersome, technical interface and created Windows, easy enough for everyone to use.

Just as these developments brought humans and technology closer together, so will tomorrow's multimedia.

Multimedia will transform into a seamless interface between user and computer and will grow its own unique content characteristics.

Multimedia applications will be as redundant as music in stereo.

Multimedia will be content-rich, with all sensory aspects developed specifically for it. It will make our computers "perceptive" and connect people, information and ideas.

DSPs unlock the future

Texas Instruments is the leader in the digital signal processing technology that will enable this transformation by allowing people to interact with each other -- via a computer -- in a completely natural way.

DSPs are the fundamental key to unlocking this future medium with their ability to shuttle huge amounts of video, audio and control data between computers.

TI's highest-performing DSP is up to 50 times faster than the most powerful general purpose processor. And it can handle 2 billion operations per second, processing image, text and sound simultaneously.

All which make multimedia a reality on the desktop.

Ultra-high-bandwidth

High-quality picture and sound require a massive bandwidth. Physical and infrastructure-investment limitations will inevitably limit its physical size, so the solution to expanding bandwidth is through data compression. And TI DSPs are the best in the compression business. As part of TI's suite of digital signal processing solutions, digital compression products are application-specific, fixed-function DSPs for audio and video encoding and decoding.

Today's fastest internet connections on standard phone lines are powered by TI DSPs and run at 56 kbs. Imagine, however, if we had an effective bandwidth of 100 Mbits/sec-ond to our homes. The ability to ship -- via TI's DSPs -- multiple screens of real-time video to and from our PCs along with voice and data would represent a fundamental change.

Who will take advantage of this high-bandwidth delivery medium? Two industries are already lined up.

Communications and entertainment enterprises stand to reap incredible profits. To paraphrase one industry pundit in Wired Magazine: When Hollywood gets a hold of the Internet, computer companies will be left in the dust.

At your service

In tomorrow's vision of multimedia, DSPs will act as intelligent software butlers called "agents" to bring a level of intuitive brilliance that transforms audio and video I/O from yet-another-interface into a truly natural way to communicate through one's PC multimedia appliance.

Rudimentary speech recognition capabilities are here today. But soon, DSP-enabled speech recognition will hear you and interpret context, inflection and even mood. As your PC-based agent gets to "know" you through an iterative, fuzzy learning process, your ability to confer with and through your computer will grow more and more natural.

Increased host-processor power will drive enhanced sophistication and effectiveness of software agents. Together with dramatic DSP-driven improvements in effective bandwidth, agents will help metamorphose audio and video into a truly natural interactive way of connecting humans with each other through computers. Collaborative work groups could work together with access to virtually all the information in the world.

Texas Instruments offers manufacturing muscle, technology leadership and knowledge of data compression and networking to enable multimedia today and tomorrow.

Who will have that creative and innovative spark to ignite a new future in multimedia? Maybe you.