ZR36504

The ZR36504 is an ideal solution for digital camera manufacturers who want to utilize the Universal Serial Bus as an interface between the camera and the computer. Using a proprietary video compression algorithm, the ZR36504 enables a throughput of up to 30f/s for CIF size images and up to 15f/s for VGA size images, utilizing only half of total available bandwidth of the USB port. An appropriate software driver in the host computer de-compresses the incoming USB data, consuming only 25% of CPU time (@ CIF 30f/s). The resulting digital image quality is almost identical to the source coming from the camera. This monolithic feature of the ZR36504 makes it ideal to be used as a one chip solution for a very low cost USB portable Video Camera.

The ZR36504 can also be used to transfer video sequence from a Composite-Video source to the computer for editing (this requires an additional video decoder chip). Due to the fact that the USB bandwidth used by the ZR36504 can be adjusted (0.5-7.5 Mbit/sec), the video software application always has enough time to record the incoming compressed video data on disk and display full frame - rate on screen simultaneously.

The ZR36504 is compatible with the NT1003-1, but has a smaller package. It supports simultaneous Serial Digital Audio input and simultaneous external Bulk-Data input as well, and eliminates the need for an external EEPROM to set a specific manufacturer USB ID code. The ZR36504 also supports 16 Mbit DRAMs for a better quality VGA video and still capture.