11/3/2014
Analog HD is drawing a lot of attention.
First there was Dahua and HDCVI. Now, many are talking about HDTVI. The big name associated with HDTVI is Hikvision, but the company behind HDTVI technology is Techpoint.
In this note, we examine Techpoint, their positioning and plans for HDTVI.
Techpoint Background
Techpoint was launched in 2012 by former key management of Techwell, a major surveillance semiconductor manufacturer, who was sold to Intersil in 2010 for $400+ million USD. As such, the new company, Techpoint, draws on a long history within this market.
Techpoint said that they initially developed and promoted HD-SDI but found a number of technical and business limitations for it. At the same time, they said they developed an analog HD offering.
In the past 2 years, they noticed an increased interest in analog HD and therefore decided to promote it.
Hikvision is a customer of Techpoint. Techpoint is not a part of Hikvision.
HD-TVI
Techpoint's analog HD is called HD-TVI, for High Definition Transport Video Interface. They develop transmitters and receivers that are then incorporated into 3rd party camera and recorder manufacturers.
Techpoint's key specifications include:
- Resolution up to 1080p/30fps
- Distances up to 500m on 3C?2V (75?3) coaxial cable
- Integrated bi?directional PTZ camera control via coaxial cable
Adoption
Techpoint reports 100 surveillance manufacturer customers for HD-TVI. Hikvision is, by far, the best known. Like most component manufacturers, Techpoint does not release most of their customer's names. Also, since TVI is so early, many have not formally announced.
Positioning Vs HD-CVI
The overall technology specifications of HD-TVI and HD-CVI are fairly close. (Note: We will have a better sense of trade-offs when Hikvision TVI is released this fall in the US and we test it against Dahua HD-CVI).
One key differential that Techpoint emphasized was that, unlike Dahua, Techpoint is neither a camera nor recorder manufacturer. Techpoint contends that manufacturers will be more likely to trust buying components from them, rather than Dahua, since Dahua is a competitor to those manufacturers.
Neither Techpoint nor Dahua have established strong brands, though Techpoint is even further behind and will have to better educate / market their offerings to the general industry to increase recognition of TVI.
Alternative HD-TVI Suppliers
Techpoint is the only supplier of HD-TVI, though they said they are discussing licensing the technology to third parties, noting that HD-TVI was just released 6 months ago and that such discussions are very preliminary today.
Patent Issues
Dahua has publicly emphasized their patents (or at least applications) for HD-CVI. In light of that, Techpoint responded:
"We implemented TVI very differently from CVI specifically to work around the CVI patents and even improve the performances. For example, we implemented some special methods so that our 1080P30 transmission is the same as our 720P30 transmission and thus is superior to CVI's transmission at 1080P30. And yes, we are actually looking into several patents for TVI currently."
Outlook
Techpoint has the track record to back up their offerings and a valuable position as an independent chip supplier. However, the company will have to prove out its manufacturer customer base, especially with big brands besides Hikvision, and will need to foster greater awareness of the technology / offering.
Author: John Honovich, Published on Sep 02, 2014 IPVM FORUM