Kit supports pairing of DSC, smartphone

SAN FRANCISCO—Image processing chip vendor Ambarella Inc. Thursday (Jan. 5) announced the availability of a wireless camera developer's kit to facilitate applications in which cameras that combine still photography and full HD video can wirelessly stream video to smartphones.

According to Chris Day, Ambarella's vice president of marketing and business development, many ruggedized sports cameras—the fastest growing category of digital cameras—lack displays or are used in such a way (such as mounted on a surfboard or a helmet) that make them impractical for users to access to be confident about the video they are shooting. Pairing a camera with a smartphone allows users to control the camera and review the video from the smartphone's display, enhancing the user experience, Day said.

For standard digital still cameras, which do feature displays, pairing with a smartphone enables users to check the picture and remotely control the camera for instances such as family portraits or setting up the camera to work remotely near, say, a soccer goal, Day said.

Wirelessly pairing a camera with a smartphone also users to use the phone to playback the recorded video, stream live video action to Internet broadcast websites such as Qik and Ustream, or upload photos or video files to Facebook or YouTube, according to Day.

"It really combines the best of both worlds," Day said.

Ambarella (Santa Clara, Calif.) said the wireless camera developer's kit is the result of collaboration between the company and Qualcomm Atheros, the networking and connectivity subsidiary of Qualcomm Inc.

The wireless camera developer’s kit uses Ambarella's multi-stream encoding capability, which supports the recording of full HD video while simultaneously recording and streaming a second stream to the smartphone, Ambarella said. The kit is available for Ambarella’s A7L camera SoC product family, the company said. Pricing information was not provided.

Kit supports pairing of DSC, smartphone