Research Updates

(1) Altera DE3
Justification for Altera DE3 board:

Logic elements: FPGA with Stratix III (EP3SL340) available with 338,000 logic elements
DE3 has a DDR2 SO-DIMM Socket. The maximum capacity and work frequency supported is 4G Byte and 266 Mhz respectively.

Examples:

30 fps for 20 second CIF format it will requires up to 174 MB.

30 fps for 20 second HDTV 1080p format it will requires up to 3.47 GB.

Requirements of various test video sequence data. Issues on how to video in, process and store back, we may consider these options:

Using the SD card and it can be accessed as optional external memory, or

Using the daughter card – Terasic Multimedia Panel Daughter Board (MTDB). This board can offer a composite video input and 15-pin high density D-sub connector for video output.

IP cores by Altera: For any DE3 board purchasing it does not include any IP cores.

Prices: It is possible to get a better offer for DE3. Unlike DE2 or DE2-70, Altera does not have a fixed academic price of DE3. Altera University Program would like to support academic users to purchase DE3 by offering a discount. This special discount will be given based on our usage or needs of DE3 system.

Things to do: Complete the DE3 Application Form and send it to Terasic and they will send it to Altera. By evaluating our project requirements Altera will offer a special discount to support our purchase of DE3. Meanwhile, Altera will subsidize Terasic the balance of the list price.

Compatibility with DSP modules: An extra daughter card may be required, depends on the DSP solution chosen and we need to check it in terms of data conversion.

(2) Research plan chart

Latest research milestones:

(3) Encoder coding (C++)

The main ideas of encmain.cpp are all about the encoding process which is mainly for setting the default parameter and user defined parameters. The main function int main (int argc, char* argv[]) were called the following subfunctions: WritePicData, WriteDiagnosticsHeader, WriteDiagnosticsData, ReadPicData, Skip, GetFrameBufferSize, ChromaToString, PrefilterToString, and parse_command_line.

However, before we can explore the details of motion estimation process, there are also other source files to be considered such as comp_compress.cpp, frame_compress.cpp, quality_monitor.cpp, quan_choose.cpp and seq_compress.cpp (under libdirac_encoder folder).

(4) Transferrable skills class for this term:

Graduate School: Communicating Via E-mail• Working With Your Supervisor• The Good Viva Guide: Video Screening & Discussion• Thinking Ahead….• Writing for Journals• Overcoming PhD Problems
Language Centre: • Social Conversation (every Monday)• Vocabulary (every Tuesday)• Writing for Research (every Wednesday)• Grammar for Academic Writing (every Friday)