Embedded Demonstrator for Video Presentation and Manipulation

Abstract

In this master thesis there has been implemented an embedded demonstrator for video presentation and manipulation, based on the specification presented in the project thesis written last semester. The demonstrator was created with the intention of being used by Department of Electronics and Telecommunication in situations where the department needed good examples of electronic systems. These systems can be used to motivate, educate and possibly recruit new students. By combining the use of video as a motivational medium with a practical approach to the theory, the demonstrator is designed to emphasize the importance of hardware/software codesign in electronic systems. The demonstrator is designed with a combination of dedicated hardware modules and the Nios II/f embedded soft processor from Altera. Video is processed in both hardware and software to demonstrate the difference in obtainable video quality. A measured frame rate of 25 fps in hardware and less than 1 fps in software is considered to be a good demonstration of the difference in processing power. An additional color processing demonstration is also created to visually demonstrate the performance differences when processing colors using software versus using custom floating-point instructions. It is concluded that an average performance increase of 300% is archived when using custom instructions, which is concidered to be noticeable visually. A poster with the necessary theory, usage guidelines and results has been created to support the demonstration together with a plan of how the demonstration should be performed based on the age and educational background of the observer.The embedded demonstrator was implemented using the Altera DE2 platform in combination with the TRDB D5M camera and hardware description from Terasic.