Digital media platforms today, have given a whole new dimension to the business ecosystem. In a way, reaching out to a huge base of potential customers has been redefined. Social media, micro blogging, TV and, video sharing platforms have opened up newer avenues for organizations to enter deeper into markets. However, the trick is to have the right kind of visual marketing strategies, to create positive impact on customer every time. A good descriptive promotional video about the organization & its product can have quantum benefit in terms of new customer acquisition.  To create super high definition videos, it is absolutely essential to have the leverage of advance video decoder system. 

A video decoder is basically an electronic circuit, which is embedded inside an integrated circuit (IC), with a definitive task of converting base band analog video signals to a more advanced digital video. A baseband signal is basically a low pass channel or network, which transmit near “Zero”, frequencies. However, only data or voice can be transmitted to limited distance with the help of baseband. However, this decoder on the other hand allows for programmable control over the video and defines its characteristics like hue, saturation, or contrast. A video which is being transmitted on a particular screen like tablet, i phones, or television can be made to look multiple times more visually appealing by modulating these characteristics. Any video capture device or frame grabber (captures digitally enhanced still frame from an analog video signal), uses advance video decoders to store, display, or transmit high definition videos for promotional or marketing purpose. 

A decoder receives an analog video signal which is in a standard format, like Standard Definition (SD), which is compatible with S-video or composite signaling standard. Whereas a High Definition (HD), video decoder accepts video formats like HD-CVI, HD-TVI, or AHD.  Now according to user requirements, output of the video decoder may be converted in various ways to 8 bit or 16 bit, BT. 1120(HD), etc. Let us have a look at the main components of such decoder and understand the function of each.

• Output formatter-This is basically the reverse of an input formatter which interprets an input field as a string or number. However, in many cases that is not suited for human readability, which calls for hexadecimal or binary formats, presented by output formatter. 

• Analog processor-This processes a continuous feed of varying data, used in industrial applications. 

• Luminance processor-This processor measures the luminous intensity of the light per unit area in any given direction. This includes amount of light passing through, emitted or reflected from a particular area. 

• Y/C (Luminance/Chrominance) separation- Chrominance (C)’ is used extensively in video systems for conveying color information, separately from Luminance signal (Y). C is usually a representation of two color difference components, like U=B-Y & V=R-Y. Separating the color signals determines the bandwidth of each of them separately. 

• Chrominance processor-This is used to convey the color information of the picture, separately from the Luma signals. As mentioned above (C) is denoted by difference of color components. 

• Clock/Timing processor-This determines the speed with which a CPU performs its operations. It is the amount of time between two pulses of oscillators.

• A/D Converter for Y/C-This is an electronic device which converts an analog input voltage to a current digital number, which is a representation of the magnitude of the voltage or current.  

• Host communication interface.

The need of the hour is technology partner, who would be able to provide scalable video decoding solutions such as MediaKind, which can match up to any customer requirement. The business world has moved to 4K Ultra High Definition (UHD), from SD service delivery. The trick is to have devices which would give flexibility to operate in any type of network. It will also be an added advantage to have remote control options, which allows for minimal operational effort. There is an increasing need for cloud based video processing solutions, which can address full processing requirements of television service providers.  An application based design will empower the operators with the power of varying processing functions on a common off the shelf (COTS) platform. It provides for multi screen viewing, without the cost of extra hardware support. Advance video decoding software would also facilitate HD video quality with ultra low latency, while maintaining integrity of the high quality content. 

A good decoder must have an advance modular receiver or (IDR), integrated receiver decoder. It must have the best in class compression efficiency, providing the customers with over 50% increase in bandwidth efficiency gains, which inevitably leads to lower operational cost. With such a device, broadcasters have the flexibility to deploy receivers for different application scenarios, which are capable of decoding an extensive range of video formats. To turn round content off the air, there are advance decoders available in the market, which are best suited for ATSC broadcast along with primary distribution application. Organizations today are increasingly opting for bulk descrambler, for increasing the efficiency of turnaround, of the encrypted free to air content from satellite platforms.  This allows for additional channels from the service networks packages.