Embedded Media Processing
A key technology enabling fast-paced embedded media processing developments is the high-performance, low-power, small-footprint convergent processor, a specialized device that combines the real-time control of a traditional microcontroller with the signal processing power of a DSP. This practical guide is your one-stop shop for understanding how to implement this cutting-edge technology.
You will learn how to:
* Choose the proper processor for an application.
* Architect your system to avoid problems at the outset.
* Manage your data flows and memory accesses so that they line up properly
* Make smart-trade-offs in portable applications between power considerations and computational performance.
* Divide processing tasks across multiple cores.
* Program frameworks that optimize performance without needlessly increasing programming model complexity.
* Implement benchmarking techniques that will help you adapt a framework to best fit a target application, and … More >>
Tagged with: Embedded • Media • Processing
This book is not a dry technical manual. It presents real-world applications, like automotive sensing systems, and analyzes how to handle them using Blackfin EMPs.
What I liked best is that every page is well written. The authors have assembled a massive amount of info, organized it, and made it so clear. Graphics and tables are also first class. It deserves an “A+” for being polished — the team (authors and production staff) deserve recognition for the quality of this document.
The book exemplifies harmony between content and delivery. It’s content-rich and very smoothly written. This is a “must read” for anyone who wants to understand why EMPs are showing up in more products.
Who would have believed that so much information could be so well presented?
Embedded media processing is a relatively new application area because it requires performance levels only recently attainable. This book assumes the reader has a working understanding of microcontroller and DSP fundamentals and also a comprehension of programming methodologies. Although the book does discuss media processing systems in general, it often grounds the discussion in concrete examples, and uses the Blackfin processor family as a basis for examples and architectural discussion. An overview of the book follows by chapter:
1. Embedded Media Processing – Introduces the concept of embedded media processing and describes how it presents new design challenges. There is an architectural discussion of the Blackfin processor that serves as a foundation for further discussions in the book.
2. Memory Systems – Provides a combination of information and examples to shed some light on the wide array of current and upcoming memory technologies. Specifically, the book talks about what types of memory to use and how to connect them in a system.
3. Direct Memory Access (DMA) – Describes DMA and relates why it is crucial in an embedded multimedia system. There are numerous examples of how the DMA controller can intelligently move data to save extra passes through the system.
4. System Resource Partitioning and Code Optimization – This chapter focuses on processor architectural features that are crucial to understand when developing a complex multimedia system. These features include event generation and handling, instruction pipelines, native addressing modes, and specialized instructions. There are many compiler tips and tricks to make the process of porting existing C/C++ code to an embedded processor as painless as possible.
5. Basics of Embedded Audio Processing – The starting point for any embedded system that requires audio processing. The basics of the human auditory system are presented along with sampling theory. Next the book describes how to connect your embedded processor to audio converters or other inputs and outputs. Discussions of audio building blocks, basic programming techniques, fundamental algorithms, and audio and speech compression standards are included.
6. Basics of Embedded Image and Video Processing – The “need to know” video basics are here without getting bogged down by format variations, geographic differences, legacy formats, etc. There is a discussion of video sources and displays that include the basic processing steps in an image pipeline. The chapter includes an example video application – analysis and design.
7. Media Processing Frameworks – Targets the problem of how to port media algorithms from larger processors where memory and bandwidth are “free” to embedded systems that don’t have unlimited resources. Describes a variety of programming frameworks that allow you to optimize performance for a given application without needlessly increasing the complexity of the programming model. Benchmarking techniques are described that will help the reader adapt a framework to fit a target application.
8. Power Management for Embedded Systems – Acquaints the reader with the many facets of power management on high-performance processors. Included is a detailed discussion of Dynamic Power Management, which is a suite of processor functionality that allows flexible voltage and frequency tuning to meet performance goals while maximizing power savings. Next voltage regulation is covered, starting with an overview of linear regulators and proceeding to step-down switching regulators. Included are recommendations for component selection to aid in circuit design.
9. Application Examples – The final chapter picks a few key areas of media processing and delves into the details on the implementation of an algorithm, framework, or system. In doing so, the book leverages the knowledge base of the previous chapters with the intent of showing how the concepts tie together into coherent entities that you can apply to your own embedded media projects.
The book includes a CD-ROM which contains VisualDSP++ Test Drive from Analog Devices. This is a fully functional 90-day trial of the VisualDSP++ 4.0 integrated development and debug environment for Blackfin processors. The book also has a companion website that has lots of useful information on embedded media processing includng notes, code examples, white papers, and updates made for the book’s second printing.
This book is well-illustrated, clear, and detailed in its coverage of this useful but not well understood topic. I highly recommend it to anyone anticipating building an embedded system in which the processing of audio, video, or image data shall occur.
I bought this book a couple of years ago and only now got to it. First thing I noticed upon pulling it off the shelf was that it had been published by Newnes. Having bought and seen a number of books from this publisher, I don’t consider them a decent outfit (they, CMP, and Wordware are the publishing houses whose imprint on a book, for me, means putting it back on the shelf w/o further ado; taught by a consistently disappointing experience, I never buy their books), so I wondered why I did buy this one. The subject is of interest to me, but still… well, I figured it and found it amazing: due to the color scheme of the covers, this book looks like an Intel Press book (Intel Press itself is nothing to write home about, but they certainly are better than Newnes by two orders of magnitude). I got confused!
You got me, friends.
Moving on, to the book itself: it is totally what you’d expect from Newnes, and that is, it’s superficial to the point of uselesness, BUT it is obviously designed to look solid — and that is achieved by way of picking a “hot” topic and then mentioning all the correct matters in the table of contents and chapters. This is what you’d notice upon a quick perusal in the bookstore, so they made it look good so you’d buy it. But when you get to read it, all these nice and appropriate chapters turn out to be disjointed, chaotic, and superficial. As well, sometimes, even incorrect: for example it is claimed that the sampling rate must be equal to or higher than double the maximum frequency that is to be captured (Nyquist theorem). This is incorrect, equal won’t do: it must be _more_ than twice, period. Small thing? Yes, it’s nitpicking perhaps, but it’s a very well-known thing, so how come the authors don’t know?
The book isn’t well written either (which is quite in the Newnes style): this means that, while someone familiar with the subject matter will be able to figure out what the authors’ verbal muddle means, a more innocent student will immediately be lost — yet surely it’s the newbie who’s the target audience here. This is typical for Newnes/CMP and the like publishers, whose publishing process apparently consists in contracting some industry participant (ostensibly qualified by the fact of working in it), getting him to produce the required page count by the necessary date, and then printing the drivel as is, w/o any editing whatsoever.
Bottom line: this shoddy book is produced with a complete lack of good faith; the only effort the publisher put in was to make it _look_ like it’s interesting (including the visual resemblance to Intel Press books). It’s a complete and utter waste of time, not recommended. Btw, it used to be noticeably cheaper than what I see on this page: did the prices go noticeably up recently? Anyway, it’s worthless at any price.
This book is a genious compilation of the Processors characteristic in depth and it toughes the obviously not direct visible problems in EMP. Understanding of Memory Architectures and the highly efficient DMA are key in designs where you want to combine real-time datastreams of Audio and Video plus a GUI and the connection to the internet. It explains very well the problems of such a system design, and how the Blackfin Processor solves those. Code optimization is a “Black Magic”, where this book spends 45 pages for. This book directs you the way, but not the final solution. Additional the CD-ROM is filled with the full Development Software for the Blackfin. Fully functional after registration on the Analog Devices web site for 90 days. Also manuals for all Processors, Compiler, Simulator, Evaluation Boards and much more is on the CD. Worth, to have this book in your standard library. 5 Stars.
I was looking for a good reference book for learning more about the Blackfin DSP family that covers hardware and software aspects (Assembler and C programming using Visual DSP++).
Analog Devices has recommended the book Embedded Media Processing. Unfortunately, this book is very basic, covering just few hardware aspects that you can easy find in Analog Devices site.
I really do not recommend this book for anyone.